


Honeypot

by fiveyaaas



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Betrayal, Choking, Daddy Kink, Dirty Talk, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Light Bondage, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, ReGuLaRlY, Rough Sex, Smut, Spanking, Suicidal Thoughts, and honeypot is officially gonna be done, and scenes that aren’t quite outtakes, but follow the same theme, but i will post outtakes, it’s just mentioned super briefly in chap 7, these tags are now UPDATED, this is like surprisingly sad i’m sorry, which i’m gonna cry about
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:01:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25716976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveyaaas/pseuds/fiveyaaas
Summary: Vanya goes to the Sparrow Academy’s Universe’s Five to get information, or at least that’s what she tells herself.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 128
Kudos: 295





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oftennot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oftennot/gifts).



> This is like so angsty, and I didn’t expect that when I wrote it. The prompt is basically that Reginald got Five still when he formed the Sparrow Academy, and this version is him at 29 if he had never had any of the others or any form of love in his life.

Vanya backed up against the wall of his room. His eyes were so green as they flicked over her body, a cruel smirk that she had never seen directed to her against his face. He  _ wasn’t _ Five, though. That was the point. He was what Five could have been if he had been raised in the cruelest possible environment, if he had reached twenty nine without ever loving anything or being loved by anything in his life. He didn’t care the same way Five did, probably incapable of doing so. She knew that. She also knew that the Five in this universe, the one of the Sparrow Academy, definitely _did_ care about one thing from her. 

Nicely put, he liked her. She knew it was a sexual attraction, knew that he didn’t have any of the kindness of  _ her  _ Five, the one she dutifully made sandwiches for and left the light on for each night when he was gone. 

That was kind of the draw though, wasn’t it? She couldn’t  _ have  _ that Five. And if that Five found out, she’d tell him a partial truth- that this was for the mission, to help them get information or possibly the Sparrow’s help. 

His eyes raked against her skin, and she felt a mixture of pleasure and disgust for herself at the action. 

“Strip,” he commanded. 

“F-Five?” she blushed at the stutter. 

“I know why you’re here,” he said, brow raised. “You’re a honeypot, I’m guessing? Take off your clothes, and I’ll give you what you want.”

“What do you think I want?” she breathed out. He smirked again then, cruelly. He blinked over to her, and she gasped as his fingers slipped into her jeans, obviously already feeling how affected she was by him. 

“I think you want multiple things, and that you’re lying to yourself about one of them,” he growled, shoving his finger inside of her. She whimpered, pressing her head into his shoulder. 

He seemed shocked by the gesture of affection, but he didn’t seem to mind it. In fact, he seemed to treasure it, kissing her head in a move that she didn’t imagine was characteristic of the Sparrow. 

“Is it just a physical thing?” she asked him, knowing what  _ her  _ Five would tell her. She couldn’t have him though, so she had this. 

He pulled away. “I’m  _ not  _ him, Vanya. You’d do well to remember that. Neither of us are even affected by being near one another, we’re clearly different in a strong enough way that there’s not even a paradox. I was raised in a different life than you, you’re not going to get  _ him _ . Get that through your pretty little head, and it might hurt less when this inevitably implodes on you.”

“You’d hurt me,” she noted. 

“I don’t even  _ know  _ you,” he countered. “And I imagine I had a harder upbringing anyways. Now, strip and lay down on my bed. I’ll give you information, but do not think that I’m going to start  _ caring _ about you. He’ll probably want me to kill you first, anyways.”

She was shocked out how brazen he was about it, how he spoke with little inflection. This was Five at the cruelest level, the level that she herself had never witnessed, but that she assumed had been there when he killed people for a living. She knew that if this Five had gotten the order to snap her neck right now, he would do it without a second thought.

He still had his eyes though, still had his voice. He still felt like the Five she loved. 

Vanya met his eyes as she stripped herself with trembling fingers. He took his own clothes off, using the tie of the Sparrow uniform to his advantage when he blinked over and quickly tied her to the headboard.

“Is that necessary?” she asked, raising her eyebrow at him. “You’re aware I’m strong enough that this won’t stop my powers, right?” 

He laughed, glancing down at her body without any shame. “I don’t care about that, I just don’t want you to try to cuddle up to me or play with my hair.”

“I think I’ll just start telling you that I love you,” Vanya snapped, suddenly angry at this situation. She couldn’t have Five, just had a shell of him. She was allowed to be pissed at this evil copy. “Maybe if I tell you I love when you fuck me, you won’t come.”

He snorted. “You’re not going to get me to stop from coming inside of you, so say whatever the fuck lets your moronic brain justify sleeping after betraying him like this.”

“He’s not going to find this a betrayal,” she said through gritted teeth.

He ran his finger against her slit, “Really, sweetheart? Because I think  _ I  _ would if the situation were reversed.” 

“Well, you’re not him,” she argued, grunting as he placed his wet finger in her mouth and making her taste herself. She didn’t let him affect her, sucking on the finger defiantly. He looked approving of the action. 

“Atta-girl,” he told her. “You’re getting it now.”

“I don’t care that you’re not him,” she lied. “So, put your cock inside of me and tell me what I want to hear. Now.” 

He followed her request, shoving into her in a quick move and telling her basic information of the Sparrow Academy almost conversationally. Like they weren’t fucking on his bed or both being horrible human beings. 

“Your cunt is so tight,” he commented after explaining the other Sparrow’s powers to her. “So wet.”

“I don’t need your sweet talk,” she told him sarcastically. 

“Oh, but I love to give it,” he replied. “Almost as much as I love your little tits.”

“Shut  _ up, _ ” she complained, and he kissed her again, this time against her lips. She made a soft little noise, kissing him back gently. 

“I thought you said you knew I wasn’t him,” he purred into her ear, nipping at the lobe. 

“Five,” she begged. “Please.”

“He’s never going to forgive you,” he whispered, voice almost gentle as he continued to rut inside of her. “You’re almost better off to stay here with me, hide out here and let me fuck you every time I need to get my cock wet.” 

“I’m loyal to him only,” she said, and this time she did see emotion on his face. He didn’t like that, wanted her to want him. He likely didn’t feel anything but possessive, but he was possessive over her already. 

“Tell me you love me,” he said abruptly, and she glanced up at him in confusion. 

“Say it, and I’ll tell you their weaknesses,” he bargained. 

“I love you,” she said, but they both knew she wasn’t saying it to him. He still looked please, offering up information on how to kill the people he lived with and trained with for years like it was roses on a first date.

“You’ve never heard someone tell you that, have you?” she realized, and his eyes hardened but they were _so_ vulnerable. If her hands weren’t tied behind her, she’d brush his hair from his face, comfort him.   
  


“I’m  _ not  _ him,” he told her, but this time his voice was sad. 

And so she offered something to him, vulnerable and looking so much like the Five she loved. She couldn’t say it to that one anyways, so she promised him that she would be his, would love him. They both knew it was a lie, that was the thing. They both knew but they both needed this- him to have  _ something  _ good in his life and her to have a version of Five that she would never get, especially in the man above her. He let her promise though, holding onto her like she was something precious until he came inside of her and let her be filled with his come, not bothering to pull out. 

He reached between them, fingering her cunt until she was coming too. She felt his come spilling against her thigh as he pulled away. Her lip felt raw, and she realized she had bitten down on it. 

He gently ran his thumb against the blood on her lips, untying her and settling her against his bed. When he spooned himself against her, he said, “Don’t say anything about it.” 

She knew it would be even more wrong to let him think that he could have this. She wasn’t meant for the man with a sparrow tattoo on his wrist, and she didn’t want him to believe she was. She started to sit up until she saw green eyes looking at her in pure shock. The Sparrow Five was right, her Five would feel betrayal. If he was right about that, did that mean that her Five would never forgive her for this either?

“Five,” she gasped out, finally able to speak, eyes filling with tears. She tried to pull away from the Sparrow, but he held onto her roughly. 

“Five!” she screamed. “Five!” 

She continued shaking, crying, wanting this all to be over. She wanted her Five to have never left her, she wanted the apocalypse to never have happened, she wanted Five to never have joined the commission, she wanted him to have not come home in a body she would be wrong to love, she wanted to not have ruined a timeline so completely that they’d lost everything that she had ever wanted but given her this. She had just gotten a shell of the life she wanted, just got the green eyes that lit when she went to his room and not the soul behind them. 

But she couldn’t have that. So she let the Sparrow Five hold her as she cried. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanya wants to find Five but doesn’t want to leave the Sparrow Five.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went ahead and decided to make it a short af multi-chap after all. It’ll just be five chapters, but I loved writing it and thought of how I could expand on it. This is mainly a PWP chapter, but it’ll kinda lead to what happens in the next few. Also, I think it must have been unclear in the first. When she gets upset and tries to leave Sparrow!Five it’s because her Five has walked in on it and seen what happened. I guess the wording was unclear there, and I might go in and change it so that’s more blatant if you guys think it’s necessary! Hope you all enjoy this though!

When Vanya finally stopped crying, the Sparrow Five spoke. 

“He will forgive you. Eventually.” 

“You don’t know that,” she said, trying to wipe away her tears against the back of her hand. She was afraid they’d come again. 

“I know that he comes from a lifetime that forgiveness is possible,” he said quietly. “I know that if I had ever learned how to forgive someone, I would forgive you for a lot.”

Vanya shook her head. “You don’t know that.”

“I want to think that you could be something I care about,” he said. 

“But I’m not.”

“Not yet,” he said, running his finger along a bruise on her back. 

“I have to find him.”

He studied her face, seemingly trying to find what he was supposed to stay. “You’re welcome to leave if you must, but he’s not going to want to see you just yet, I imagine.”

“Do you think he really will hate me?” 

Five stared at her with a furrow to his brow. He looked exactly like her Five, but she knew that if she touched his wrist it wouldn’t be the same. “I hope for your sake that he doesn’t.”

“Can you blink me out of here?” she asked. 

“Why do you need me to?” 

“Your siblings-“

“They’re not my siblings,” he said sharply. “We do not have family or any emotional ties.”

“Fine. Will the Sparrow Academy try to kill me if they find me here?”

“Absolutely they will _ try _ ,” Five chuckled. “But they’re not going to mess with you if I’m near you. They won’t think it’s worth it.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I would kill them without a second thought.”

“Wouldn’t you do the same to me?”

“No,” he told her. “I’d give some thought to it first, surely.”

She realized he wasn’t joking. In a messed up way, he was trying to say that he had more loyalty to her than the Sparrow Academy. It made her sick to her stomach. 

“Five,” she said. She brushed his hair back from her head, and he jerked away.

“You’re not supposed to do that,” he snapped. “Do you want me to tie you up again?”

She blinked. “You really don’t want affection, do you?”

“I don’t want you wanting something from me that I’m incapable of offering,” he replied. “You can play with my hair all you want if I’m nothing more than a cock to you, but we both know that’s not the case.” 

“I need to find him,” she said. 

“Okay.”

“I  _ do _ . I need to find him. I need to explain what he saw.”

“Okay.”

“Stop saying okay.”

He paused a second. “Fine.”

She glared at him. 

“You’re not going to like whatever he has to say about this,” he told her. “I’ll take you far enough outside of the mansion that you’re safe to search for him, but I’m not going to reassure him that whatever this was was just a means for information for you.”

“Why not?” she asked through gritted teeth. 

“Was it?” he asked, self-satisfied just as much as her Five. 

“Stop talking to me.” 

He rolled his eyes, laying back on his bed. 

When he hadn’t spoken for a full minute, she climbed on top of him. He glanced up at her, still not speaking. 

“I like it better when you don’t speak,” she commented, reaching between them to touch him. His smirk was too cocky, and she wanted to change that. Of course, when she palmed him, he managed to look even more full of himself. 

“You’re a horrible excuse for a human being,” she said, jerking him off. “I hate that you look like him. I hate that I want you.”

He wouldn’t speak, so she decided to go another route. “When I saw you looking at me, I knew that I was going to fuck you. I knew you’d be good too, even if you’re clearly evil. I knew that I’m meant for you just as much as him because you’re just another version of him. And I know that when I let myself fuck you again tonight, I’ll be thinking of him while I do it and you’re not going to care because I’ll still be perfectly tight and wet for you anyways.” 

He blinked at her, seeming to enjoy this talk, but he still refused to open his mouth. 

“Speak to me,” she hissed, letting him win this standoff because she preferred him snarling insulting praise or murmuring soft, tender venom. 

“If you’re going to fuck me again tonight, sweetheart,” he said with a deathly calm, cupping the backs of her thighs so that all her weight was in his hands and she was hovering just a little above him. “You’re going to  _ beg  _ for it. You’re going to  _ plead  _ for me to fuck you because you want something that you can’t have. You’re going to ride my cock hard enough that your little tits bounce, and you’re going to say my name and  _ mean  _ me.”

His thumb ran his finger against her, letting himself feel the wetness against it but not moving the death grip on her thighs. He wasn’t going to let her go until she did what he asked. 

“Please,” she said softly, biting her lips. 

“Tell me that you want it, Vanya.”

“I want it,” she gasped, trying to touch herself but he barked out an order for her to stop. She followed his order, looking down at him with pleading eyes.

“Tell me that you’re going to stay the night afterwards,” he said, and this time his voice felt almost… kind. But this wasn’t Five. This  _ wasn’t  _ Five. 

“I’ll do whatever you want,” she whispered. “But let me pretend you’re him. Please.”

“Alright, sweetheart,” he agreed, still speaking in that voice that she knew wasn’t gentleness but felt like it nonetheless. “Just this once, I’ll let you pretend, but we both know that you can’t pretend forever.”

With that, he pushed her down on him, and she screamed. The lights flickered in the Sparrow’s room and he glanced at them with a bored interest. “What’s your power exactly?”

She pushed her hands against his chest, rolling her hips as roughly as he had asked and letting him stare at her chest openly. She grabbed one of his palms and placed it on her breast. He clearly noticed she avoided the sparrow-tattooed-one, but he was kind enough to not say it. He pinched at her nipple, asking her again what her power was.

“I’m the honeypot here,” she said, rolling her hips as she emphasized the words. “You don’t get to ask questions.”

“Fair enough,” he said, shrugging like he didn’t care anyways. He moved the hand that did have the tattoo to her clit, thumbing it. “You’re a wonderful little thing anyways. Information well given.”

She started bouncing on him, trying to change up the movement so that she could get the most pleasure. “You have… oh! You have no loy- loyalty.”

“If they die because of the information I gave you, then they aren’t a very good team to be with anyways. Don’t you think?”

She whimpered. “Please keep touching me there.”

He looked pleased, easily obeying her request. The pressure went to her stomach, that feeling of tightness in her stomach an ache but such a good one. 

“Five, I love you,” she said, letting herself think of the one she did love just a second. “I waited so long for you. I was made for… oh, oh!”

She was aware that the entire Sparrow Academy was hearing her screaming, but she did not give a single fuck as she clenched around one of the Sparrow’s best weapons. He didn’t seem to mind either, gasping out “ _ Vanya _ ” before she felt his come inside of her as well. She weakly gasped his name, kept saying she loved him because he said he’d let her pretend and she was pretending and because she was pretending she kissed him and kept praising him as he fucked her with his finger until she came against it again and he shoved his finger into her mouth and made her taste both herself and him against it. Because she was pretending, he let her suck against his finger before saying that she loved him again and always wanted to be with him. Because she was pretending, she didn’t protest when he pulled her to his side and kissed her forehead and said that he would like to keep her. Because she was pretending, she told him that she was his and that he was hers and that he could keep her as long as he wanted. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I think this fic will stay pretty sad, by the way, if you don’t want to read something super tragic.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five tries to save Vanya.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m loving writing this story so much! Thank you to all the people who have commented or left kudos or all the people encouraging me on discord!!!

“Are you sure he has her?” Luther asked Five, who glared in response. 

“Obviously, he has her. I  _ saw  _ them.”

“Oh, I get it now,” Klaus announced. “You’re  _ jealous. _ ”

Five scowled. “Yes, Klaus. I’m worried Vanya is trapped with a homicidal creep whose mission is likely to kill each of us because I’m  _ jealous. _ ”

“Isn’t he  _ you _ , though?” Allison asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “Wouldn’t he like… care about Vanya?”

“He’s clearly _not_ me, or else I’d be experiencing paradox psychosis. He’s either a clone or an android or even he _is_ me just in an entirely different universe. We do know that he’s never met Vanya though, which means he would have no hesitation in killing her.”

“How do we know it’s not paradox psychosis?”  _ Did Luther really have to wait until now to act like Number One again? _

“You  _ do  _ seem to be filled with homicidal rage,” Diego commented. 

“Not anymore than what the situation calls for,” Five implored. “If I didn’t see this situation as completely precarious, I’d have already killed him. Unfortunately, that could mean endangering Vanya more, and I’m not going until I have enacted a clear plan.”

“You’re going to try to get the attention of the Sparrow Academy,” Allison deduced. “How do you know he’ll make them do missions? Especially all at once?”

“Because when the person you rumor specifically says that he’s doing this in response to the Sparrow Academy, Reginald will want it shut down immediately,” Five told her, surprised that she had figured out it was his plan. Sparrow Five would have to leave the mansion, and they could get Vanya out of there before then.

“What if she’s trying to get information though?” Klaus looked defensive of Vanya, which Five thought would’ve been much better if he had acted like this years ago. “We could have information on the Sparrow Academy, and I don’t know if you guys noticed but Sparrow Five seemed to not mind her at all. Now, call me a romantic, but I think hatefucking might make him a little fond.”

“You think because he has sex with Vanya he’s immediately going to protect her? Are you  _ serious? _ ”

“It works that way in rom-coms, they could be all enemies-to-lovers! It would be so sweet.”

“He  _ kills _ people,” Five growled. “He’ll  _ kill  _ Vanya.”

“This is coming from an assassin that considered murdering Vanya when she went all White Violin.”

“Yeah, and if  _ I  _ had considered it, how quickly do you think  _ he  _ would?”

“She could be the one person he could never bring himself to hurt! That’s how the trope goes!”

“Klaus, if you do not  _ stop talking _ about this, I will consider murdering  _ you. _ ”

“So it  _ is  _ jealousy! Called it everyone!” 

“I’m  _ not  _ jealous,” Five said (a little too loudly for someone who wasn’t, but that wasn’t the point there). 

“Are you having paradox psychosis though?” Luther asked. “Because we wouldn’t judge you if you-“

“It’s  _ not  _ paradox psychosis.”

“Is it _ possible  _ that maybe Vanya is completely fine with him and he could provide us with pertinent information we need?” Diego argued. “Five, think about it. If you really thought she was in danger, wouldn’t you have already gotten her?”

Five sighed. “I’m not going to risk this, Diego.”

“You saw her though, Five. You  _ know  _ she’s fine. You can’t honestly think that the Sparrow Five will kill her because if you did, he’d be dead.”

Five didn’t want to admit Diego had a point. He especially didn’t want to admit  _ Klaus  _ had a point. They both did though. Five’s mind kept flashing to Vanya underneath the guy, how he clearly didn’t intend to hurt her (at least not then). He didn’t know why he was so upset about it. Vanya was being tactful, she wasn’t doing this to upset him. It was fine. 

Still.

“I need to get her out of there.”

Allison read everyone’s facial expressions before asking, “Who do I need to rumor?”

***

She awoke in the Sparrow’s arms to a sound that jolted her with memories from years ago. 

“He still has the alarm for missions,” she noted, glancing around this Five’s room. His walls were blank, which bothered her on a level that he wouldn’t likely understand. 

“Why aren’t you getting ready?” she asked him, frowning. 

He studied her face. “I’m trying to figure out where to put you.”

“Where to  _ put  _ me?”

“So no one finds you. Obviously.”

“I’m fine staying right here and climbing out a window to get out or something.”

“You’d get hurt.”

“I can fly.”

“I was referring to the security measures here, Honeypot. But do tell me your secrets about how to defeat you.”

“I’d win in a fight against you,” she said calmly. 

“I doubt that. If I take you somewhere hidden from everyone in this house, will you not try to break out?”

She pursed her lips. “I’m not going to try to get out, but how long will the mission take you? I don’t want my people starting to wonder where I am. I know my Five wouldn’t hesitate to kill you, and I have a feeling he’s already not happy with you what with the whole walking-in-on-us matter.”

He sighed. “The mission will take a short time, Vanya, but you’re not going back to them.”

“ _ What? _ ”

He grabbed onto her, and the sharp drop in her stomach was gone as quickly as they were. They reached what she was pretty certain to be a room with absolutely no doors. 

“Nobody can get in here because only someone who could teleport could get in,” she deduced, taking in the surroundings. It was well maintained, nice and almost cozy. There were books everywhere, titles she recognized that Five enjoyed. Upon further inspection, there was a door, but it was to a restroom and nothing else. “How long have you had this space? Why do you have it?”

“I’ll explain after the mission. Make yourself comfortable. Also, don’t worry about fires or anything, it’s completely safe in here.”

“That makes me more concerned if you had to mention it.”

“I wouldn’t put you in danger,” he said, and this was sincere. He kissed her before disappearing again. 

She found where he kept food in his hideout, eating a quick breakfast. She flicked on a lamp by a chair, settling in and reading a book. 

She must have fallen at sleep at some point during the book because pretty soon she was being shaken awake.

She didn’t open her eyes. “Fuck off,” she said. 

“Vanya.”

Her eyes snapped open. It was her Five. 

“You-“

“Shut  _ up,  _ I have to get you out of here.”

“Five-“

“You’re okay if I teleport you? He hasn’t drugged you or anything that it would affect you more, right?”

“Five-“

“Has he found anyway to keep you tracked down yet?”

“ _ Five! _ ” she snapped. He frowned at her. 

“What?” he asked like he hadn’t heard her attempts at getting his attention before then.

“He’s not going to handle you getting me out well, and he’s going to know it was you.”

“That’s the beauty of this hideout,” he said, biting his lip.

“You had it in the previous life?”

He nodded sharply. “I wanted to show you it when we were young, but I never had the chance because…”

He trailed off, and she knew what he was saying. 

“Five, I can’t leave here.” 

Five sighed loudly. “This is not the time to argue, Vanya. We have to get you out before he-“

“Before he comes back?” Five turned as the Sparrow Five spoke. 

“You know, I did find it odd that we had such an urgent mission at such a convenient time,” the Sparrow commented, flicking his eyes over where Five had his hand clutched around Vanya’s wrist. “You understand why I’m going to say taking Vanya would be a bad plan for you, right?”

“The Sparrow Academy has the others,” Five said, and Vanya’s nails dug into his wrist. 

“Let them go,” Vanya pleaded to the Sparrow. 

He thought a second. “I will.  _ If  _ you agree to stay here.”

“I will-“

“She will  _ not, _ ” Five said, pushing her so she was between them.

“She won’t be hurt if that’s what you’re worried about,” the Sparrow’s voice held the blandness it normally did. He must have been trained to sound bored rather than let his emotions peek through. Vanya knew it was an act though, and she knew Five probably did too. 

“I’m not leaving without her.”

“Five,” Vanya touched his shoulder. “I promise you, I’ll be safe. I won’t let anything happen, and we can’t risk the others. It’s okay. He’s not going to hurt me.”

“Say that’s true,” Five said, eyes blazing. “What about the rest of the Sparrow Academy? They’d be pretty pissed that he’s consorting with a member of the Umbrella Academy, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, well, I’m not a member of the Umbrella Academy, so the point is moot.”

Five glowered, and the Sparrow laughed at the two of them. “Vanya will be safe, take the deal already.”

“I’m not going to leave you again,” Five snapped, trying to reach for her again. 

Maybe it was because Vanya was hurt, or maybe it was because she was trying to convince Five to take this deal with the Sparrow to protect her family. The next words that came out of her were sharp, though, and did exactly the damage she expected. “Maybe if you never left the first time this wouldn’t have happened.”

Five looked like she had slapped him, but he left. She fell to her knees, already starting to sob. 

The Sparrow Five crouched down next to her, pulling her into his arms.

“He hates me,” she cried. 

“No, he doesn’t,” he reassured. “I know that he doesn’t.”

“Why are you forcing me to stay here?”

He frowned. “If you want to leave, you can, but that would be your choice alone.”

“Then why did you threaten my family?” she asked.

He laughed. “Who said they were threatened?”

She pulled away from him harshly. “You let him think they were in danger? To keep me?”

“You’re not going to get what you wanted with him anyways, I don’t see why you care.” 

“Yeah because you’ve never loved anything in your life,” she snapped. 

He shrugged. “That may be true, but you would have already left if you had really wanted to. And you won’t admit that to yourself because you know what you want is wrong. You’re using me to replace  _ him _ , and you think that this won’t implode on you. It will, Vanya. So take my offer to stay here, and when they defeat the Sparrow Academy, go ahead and run away with him.”

“Do you even think they can?” she asked. “Or are you saying that because you know you’ll defeat us?”

“I’m saying it because I know that Reginald’s abuse of us and forcing us to view each other as nothing more than colleagues in organized crime disguised as justice isn’t going to make us a very strong team. I know that you are all more motivated to protect one another because I would kill the Sparrow Academy members in a second for you, and that your Academy worked because they had loyalty to each other at the very least.”

“Why are you bothering to keep me here? Are you going to kill me?”

“No,” he said, pulling her up to where she was standing. “There’d be no fun in that. But I like to think when they kill all of the other Sparrows that you’ll protect me.”

“I wouldn’t,” she said coldly.

“Tell me you want to go right now,” he replied, face blank. “Tell me to take you out of here and back to your Five, and that you don’t want me. If you do, I’ll take you back immediately.”

She opened her mouth to say it, but she couldn’t get the words out. She could never have the Five she loved. Never. 

What made her so wrong for wanting this one?

When she still hadn’t said anything, he pulled her back against him. 

“It’s not going to work out for you,” he breathed in her ear. “You know that right?”

“Touch me,” she replied.

He teleported them to the bed, settling her against it. After he had shrugged off his jacket and tie, she commanded, “Stop.”

He glanced over to her, obeying. 

She pulled his shirt over his head, throwing it to the side. Her hands reached for his belt, unbuckling it quickly before she kissed him. 

When they were still kissing, he took off the top she had borrowed from him. She realized that her Five had seen her just in a pair of panties and the other’s shirt. It didn’t faze her though. He already knew. They couldn’t have one another, maybe he was comforted in knowing that she would have been with him in another life. 

She was laying down in only her underwear as he leaned over her, unzipping his pants and pulling them off. 

“Five?”

“Yes?” he asked, stepping out of the pants and his underwear. 

“Can you lay down?” She gestured how she wanted him, and he looked confused but did it.

The confusion left his face once she palmed him. It filled with anticipation, and she kept her gaze up at him as she closed her mouth around him, going just far enough that it wouldn’t choke her. 

“Vanya,” he groaned. She smiled around him, using her hand to pick up the slack of her mouth. She moved her head against him to the same rhythm she kept with his hands, closing her eyes and trying to not think of anything else than what she was doing.

He knotted his hand in her hair, and she knew if she looked at it, she wouldn’t see the umbrella on his wrist. She went at a faster pace then, and he thrust inside of her mouth, and she choked at the sensation but kept going. He gasped out, saying her name over and over. 

When he reached his climax and spilled into her mouth, she swallowed before pulling away and glancing up into his gaze. His eyes were soft, and she knew that this was more emotion than he had ever shown before.

She brushed his hair back then, and, this time, he didn’t complain about it. This time, he wrapped his hand around her wrist as she did it, and he pulled her into his lap.

“You’re so good,” he told her. “What did he do to make you so good?”

She shook her head. “You have no idea who I am. What I’ve done.”

“But I wish I knew,” he said reverently. 

“You don’t,” she said. Because her Five wouldn’t have wanted to know it either. Five’s purposes in life were his family and saving the world. She was his family, she knew he loved her above the others too likely. But she was also the one to destroy the world, and she knew that maybe they would have had a chance if he had never known. 

But he did know. 

And this is all she had left. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five leaves for the Commission.

When he was asleep, there was practically no difference between him and what she imagined her Five would look one day. She had been here maybe two and a half months now, and she knew that the other Sparrows were not pleased. She didn’t care. She ran her hand through his hair tenderly, trailing down to touch his shoulder. This Five had a scar there, a harsh looking thing. It still raised slightly, obviously never having had a chance to heal properly. She wondered how many times he had been hurt and not healed properly to become _this._

She kissed the scar, running her hands through his hair again. The way his breathing changed imperceptibly, something that nobody without super hearing would ever even pick up on, indicated that he awoke. He isn’t showing signs of being awake though, so she lets him think that she doesn’t know and continues brushing his hair through her fingers. 

Her lips curled slightly, and she moved her hand to touch his arm, at the cord of muscle that wasn’t very apparent unless he was shirtless. She moved to kiss his neck, nipping against his pulse. 

“ _Vanya_ ,” he groaned, finally letting her be aware that he was awake and turning to face her. If this was her Five, she’d tease him about being the little spoon, but this wasn’t her Five. 

She pushed him down to where he was flat on his back, already crawling on top of him. 

He stared up at her, and even though his face was blank at first glance, she could see sadness in it. She didn’t want to see it, moving his hand up to cup her breast. 

“You should let me go,” he blurted. 

She panicked. “No, you don’t mean that.”

“You’re _good_ , Vanya. I’m _not._ It’s very simple.”

“I’m not good,” she said, shaking her head fervently. “I’m more dangerous than you.”

“Even if that’s true,” he murmured. “You don’t delight in it like I do. And I don’t want to hurt you. I can’t do that now, I don’t think.”

“I’ll stay here,” she whispered. “I’ll be good, I’ll do whatever you-“

“Vanya, you need to leave before you get hurt.” 

She felt her eyes fill with tears. “I _want_ to be here.”

“Vanya-“

She pressed her mouth to his own. He stopped speaking. 

“Let me stay,” she pleaded. “I’ll do anything. Just, let me stay.”

“I shouldn’t have ever done this,” he told her. “Please, Vanya, you’ll be safe with him.”

She shook her head, tears coming down harder at the mention of her betrayal. “I can’t, Five. I can’t go. Please, Fi-“

“Vanya,” he gripped her arm. “You’ll get killed here.”

“You’ll be safe with him,” he repeated. 

“How do you even know that?”

“Because if I had you, truly, I’d do everything in my power to keep you safe too.”

***

Five knew which department to go to, and it didn’t take him much time to get the attention of the Commission. 

Vanya wouldn’t notice however long he was gone this time, he would make the deal clear. He would go back to her once he had retired, and the longest _she_ would experience separation from him would be a year. And he knew that the Sparrow would protect her while he was gone, much as he hated to admit it. 

Then, he would have a body that matched hers. He would do whatever contract they asked for however long, do whatever they asked, so he could get his body. He would be able to wait until then. 

It was for Vanya, but it was also for him. 

But it was wrong to want that, and he felt guilty for it, so he told himself that it was to right a wrong. 

Maybe one day when he finally was able to kill his last person, he would be able to convince himself of that. 

***

Vanya gripped the Sparrow’s elbow. 

“Do you think he’s dead?” she whispered. 

“No,” the Sparrow said quickly, seeing her horror. “No, I think he went away, but I would bet he’s fine.”

She wanted him to explain further, but he was glancing around speculatively. He reached over, jumping them back to the mansion. 

Five had left. Why? 

And then it occurred to her, and she gasped. When she landed in the room that the Sparrow had hidden her before missions, she started panicking. 

“He’s back with the Commission,” she whispered, falling to her knees. She was struggling to breathe. 

“He can control when he goes back in time,” the Sparrow said, gripping her hands. “He’ll come back here for you, surely. It’ll be soon enough you’ll barely even notice his absence, I would bet.”

“What will I do until then?” 

She wondered if it was wrong to be asking him to help her here. She didn’t know what they were to each other, but she couldn’t imagine that it was easy knowing that she would choose someone else in an instant. 

“You’ll stay with me,” he said finally, pursing his lips. “Unless you want to be with The Umbrella Academy when you wait.”

She opened her mouth before quickly closing it. “Which is safer?”

“Do you even trust me enough to answer that?” he asked her, assessing her. 

He knew that she trusted him, she was pretty certain of it. He wanted her to say it, and she was once again reminded that her life, no matter how awful, couldn’t compare to his own. 

She gentled her tone as much as she could. “Of course I trust you.”

It was true, and she was surprised by it. She didn’t know when it happened that she began to trust him, but she did trust him. He regularly protected her from the other Sparrows. In fact, none of them even really spoke to her. She spent most of her time in his room, only leaving when he was able to go with her. Even if her powers were strong, she didn’t know if she would be able to be last against all of them, even with all of the intel he had given her about their powers. She also didn’t think she could bring herself to fight the Ben that she had not grown up with but still undoubtedly looked like her Ben. 

“I think you should stay with me,” he said finally. “I think that you’ll be most safe with me, but then again I don’t really know much about the Umbrella Academy.”

“Why are you willing to protect me?” she asked him. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” he drawled. He looked exactly like her Five as he spoke in that mildly condescending tone. 

“I want you to say it.”

He snorted, flicking his gaze away from her. “You really don’t want to hear it, Vanya.”

She touched his arm, and he sighed. “Vanya, you know what this is, and I know what this is. Don’t complicate it.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck, standing as tall as she could force herself to be. “What if I want to?” she murmured against his ear. 

“And do you?” 

She brushed her fingers through his hair, pressing her lips to his cheek. He made an impatient noise, lifting her up and settling her against the bed. Vanya quickly undressed herself, and lightly stroked the bare skin of her thigh. She moved his hand away gently, waiting until she had pulled off his clothes before glancing up at him, “Say it.”

“Vanya…”

She bit her lip, sending him a pleading glance. “I want to hear you say it.”

The pain in his gaze was clear, and she wanted it to go away. 

“I love you.” He said it like it was a confession of a crime, and she wondered if it was harder to have never said those words or to have never heard them. 

She kissed him, and he didn’t ask her to say it back. She didn’t know if she was supposed to or if it would change anything if she did. 

“I belong to you,” he told her, and she tensed against him. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking away. 

“No, it’s fine,” she assured him. She gently ran her hand against his arms, kissing him again. “You’re okay.”

“You’d still be with him if you had the chance,” he guessed, appraising her. 

“Yes.” She didn’t see the point in lying. If he had been the one who had been her best friend, who had been the person she waited for for seventeen years of her life, the answer would be different. As it was, this was not her Five, even if he wanted to be hers. Her eyes started to fill with tears of frustration, both with herself and the world. 

“Don’t cry,” he pleaded, brushing away the tears. “It’s okay. I love you, Vanya.”

It occurred to her that the jolt she felt as he said the words was because of the voice saying the words, not the person, and she felt sick with guilt. 

“I knew what would happen,” he reminded her kindly. “You don’t have to feel guilty. You’ve given me so much already.”

“What have I possibly given you to excuse this?” She wished her voice didn’t crack, didn’t want him to feel guilt for her being anguished over this. 

“You’ve given everything I was deprived of all of my life, and you make me want to be a better person. Nobody has made me feel this way before.”

“You shouldn’t want to be a good person because of somebody else,” she told him gently. 

“I had never had any reason before you,” he admitted. “But that’s because there was no kindness in my life, there was nothing ever meaningful. I know that I likely would have never changed if it weren’t for you, but I don’t want you to think that it’s your responsibility for me to be a better person. I just… I needed you to point me in the right direction.”

She wondered if her Five had _ever_ needed her. It felt like it was always the other way around. Sure, he liked to have her around, even wanted to have her around, but did he ever solely need her for anything? She shouldn’t want this. The Sparrow was right to have reminded her that this would implode multiple times.

But she _did_ want it. Did it matter what she _should_ be doing if she already had done many things she shouldn’t have?

She kissed him again, gripping his hand and guiding him to touch her. Without thinking much of it, she spread her legs, trying to convince him to pet her. 

He smiled at her, and it was softer than any expression she had ever seen on the Sparrow. He kissed her lips and then her throat and then her chest. She realized what he was about to do as his kisses kept trailing down until his hot breath hit between her hip and navel. 

“Five,” she gasped. 

He glanced up at her, beaming. She placed her thighs against his shoulders, encouraging him. 

It turned out there wasn’t much encouragement necessary. He pulled her closer, mouthing at her cunt. 

“Y-you don’t have to,” she whimpered. 

He frowned at her like she was being ridiculous, and it felt so familiar to the person who held her heart. She gently stroked his hair, and he flattened his tongue against her, one hand gripping against her thigh and the other pressing a finger inside of her. 

She ground her hips to his face, but she kept running her hand through his hair with the most tenderness she was capable of giving him. Even if she could not in this second say that she loved him and know without a shadow of a doubt that she was referring to him as she said it, she could show him a small act of love. He groaned appreciatively as she did, and she murmured praise to him, saying that he was so good, so right for her. When he made another noise, he sounded like a wounded animal. 

“It’s okay,” she encouraged. “It’s o-okay.”

He started fucking her in earnest with his finger and tongue, and she gasped at the differing sensation. “F-five,” she begged. “Keep going.”

He followed her order, not getting rough about it but still making sure that it thoroughly wrecked her. “Please, please, _oh!_ ”

Her eyes rolled back, body feeling weightless and stomach tightening up at the same time. Her hips kept rolling against his face as she started yelling out praise. 

Vanya’s legs were shaking when he pulled away, and she didn’t recognize the noise she made as she noticed the wetness of his chin. 

He moved up to kiss her.

“I’ll take care of you,” he promised. “I’ll make sure you’re safe until he comes back for you.”

He noticed her stiffen, and he quickly told her, “It’s okay. I understand. It’ll be okay.”

“It’s going to implode on me,” she said. 

“It will be okay, he’ll forgive you.”

“Would _you_?” 

“I’m not him,” he reminded her, and the sorrow was clear in his voice as he said it. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to extend this to make it to where it’s now seven chapters because I decided I wanted to give a little more time for UA!Five and Vanya. I hope you guys don’t mind!!!

“I have to leave,” she said weakly. 

She didn’t know that she  _ wanted _ to leave. She  _ did _ know it was necessary. 

The Sparrow’s eyes were horrified. He knew she was not safe here now. Allison had come to get Vanya back to the Umbrella Academy, making a grave mistake in the Sparrows’ eyes. Even if Vanya was not one of them by any means, they took it as an attack on the Sparrows because she had gone inside in hopes of getting Vanya to wherever home was now.

The Sparrow Five had saved Allison’s life. 

“I’ll get you out of here,” he said, but he sounded just as uncertain as her. 

“I want you to stay with me.” 

He jerked out of her hold. “I can’t, Vanya.”

“I don’t want the Sparrows to hurt you.”

He inhaled sharply. “I’m one of them.”

“But won’t they take this as a betrayal?”

“I can’t go with you.”

“Why not?”

“What about  _ your  _ Five?” He demanded, and she flinched. She had been so used to hearing the softness of his voice that the sharpness now felt an especially cruel contrast.

“You need to go with me,” she said, trembling and trying to avoid his gaze. 

“You have to leave, but I am not going with you.”

She thought of the Five that had been thirteen years old, who didn’t listen to her no matter how much she begged to not separate. She thought of how insistent he had then been that they stayed together when they had landed in Dallas. How many years would she have to be away from the Sparrow would it take for him to know that they had to be together or shit went wrong?

“Please, Five.” 

“We’re leaving. I’ll get you back to them, and then you are going to go far enough away that they won’t bother looking for you.”

“You can’t leave me again.”

His voice was eerily calm when he spoke a few moments later. “Whatever he did to make you alone is not  _ my  _ fault.”

He was right. He had absolutely no control over what the Five she had lost as a teenager did. 

Because he _wasn’t_ him. 

Wasn’t that the point? She had reminded herself of this so many times, that this could never be him. 

She could never make up for time lost with a person that had been present the entire time she had known him. 

This was not her Five. 

And the most horrifying part was that the man she had been in love with, since she had known what the phrase meant, she would always be waiting for. Even when he was in her grasp, when she was able to clean his wounds the night he finally came home, she was waiting for him to come home. 

When she had destroyed the mansion before she had destroyed the world, she had not thought to destroy the memories with him. She had barely thought of him at all. When she had gotten her memory back, the Five in her fantasy had barely done anything except remain silent. 

Five not existing in her life was the worst possible thing she could imagine him to do. 

That’s why she had done this, hadn’t she? She had wanted someone that smelled like him, looked like him, was him in every way except the memory of her. 

Would he have been different if he had had her? 

All Vanya knew that the first step in becoming broken was when she had lost him. 

“I have to leave,” she repeated. She felt numb, the way she had felt taking too many of the pills she had been prescribed. 

“I’ll take you,” he said. His voice was weak now too.

“I know you’re not him.”

“I know.”

“I know that I still want you.”

“Is that enough?”

“I don’t care,” she said calmly. “Isn’t it enough that I want you for you?”

“If I stayed with you, what would happen when he came back to you?”

She didn’t know. 

He did though. He knew what Five would do, and he was trying to protect Vanya from having to choose. 

She loved him for it. 

She gripped the collar of his shirt, pulling him down and pressing a bruising kiss to his mouth. 

“I don’t know if this will ever be enough,” she admitted, backing him into the corner of the bed. He fell onto the mattress, and she wasted no time in climbing on top of him, grinding against him. “But I know that I love every version of you there is, and I know that I love you because of it.  _ I _ may not have existed in your universe, but there is a version of me out there. And I know that you are as meant for her as he is for me. I like to think that in every single timeline, in every universe that comes from that timeline, that we are looking for each other. I want you to promise you’ll look for her.”

He understood what this was. He had always seen what she wanted, always known. 

They weren’t meant for each other, but they did mean something to each other in that moment. She would love every version of Five she could have, and this was the only one she had been able to be with at the moment. She had grasped that so tightly that she had uprooted all of the thoughts he had had before. 

They could be together one more time, but this was goodbye. She knew that once he found the Sparrow world’s Vanya, they would likely never speak again. It was a bitter thought, but there was a version of herself that was meant for him too. 

“Tell me you love me.” When he said it this time it was a request, just wanting the reassurance that all this time had meant something for her too. He had never heard someone tell him he loved him before he had her, and he had never said the words either. 

“I love you,” her lips pressed gently to his own. 

“Vanya,” her name was a prayer against his lips. 

She let his hands explore her slowly. They would take their time- this was goodbye after all. They only had this one last time now, and they would prolong it as long as possible. 

He moved his mouth to press softly against her collarbone, teeth scraping just a bit against the skin there. His lips met her ear, and he whispered, “I love you too.”

She shivered and he nuzzled against her cheek. 

“I wish I had never had to wait for you,” he said, moving them so that he was on top of her. “I’m still going to have to be one of them after this, though.”

“You don’t have to be.”

He moved away. “Vanya, you know I can’t-“

“You’re not the enemy.”

“Thanks,” he said wryly. 

She shook her head fervently at him not understanding. “Reginald is, though. None of you have to follow his orders. You could leave him.”

“I don’t think that’s possible, Vanya,” he told her gently. 

“The Umbrella Academy and the Sparrow Academy do not have to fight each other. They have to leave  _ him. _ ”

He opened his mouth to protest.

“Do you really want him to control your life any longer?” She didn’t know if her voice sounded pleading to his ears as well. 

“Vanya, it’s not that simple,” he murmured. “If it were, I would have already left with you.”

It was a sobering thought. Perhaps if he had been raised without seeing only a world in which he followed Reginald’s orders they could have been together. 

It wouldn’t have been any more real than this one though. 

“If you don’t leave,” she told him softly. “You’ll never be able to find her.”

“How do you know she’s not dead?”

“Don’t you care about the other Sparrows?” Unbidden, Ben’s face flashed into her mind. It was an unsettling image. She had barely spoken more than an entire paragraph to all of the Sparrows, but she remembered Ben, the gentlest of the Umbrella Academy. He had never wanted to follow Reginald’s orders. How much did becoming Number One affect who he was and how much of it was not having anybody in the world on his own side? She remembered the looks that Ben and Klaus would send each other when nobody was looking. What if the Sparrow had had Klaus? 

“At this point, you’re the only person I’ve ever truly cared about,” he admitted. There was shame on his face. He didn’t like that she had been right in her first suspicions of him. She contrasted how he had acted months ago to who he was now. He had changed. Not  _ because _ of her. She had simply shown him that softness could be okay. 

“Would you do it for me?” She whispered. His eyes went wide. It was a cheap trick, one she had technically used on her own Five. Five would do a lot of things he didn’t care for if she had asked, specifically, for him to do them for her. 

“Vanya,” he chided. 

She stared up at him, giving him the closest thing she could imagine to pleading eyes. 

“I can ask them,” he finally grunted. He pulled her off of him, laying down on the bed and staring at the ceiling. He didn’t look annoyed, more contemplative. She ran her hand across his stomach, moving to rest her head on his chest and humming a piece she used to play for her Five when they were young. His favorite piece. The Sparrow wouldn’t notice the connection, but it seemed to soothe him. 

“I wish I could have you forever,” she confessed. He glanced down at her, eyebrows furrowing. She craned her head up, pressing her lips to his own. 

“I do too,” he told her, pulling a strand of hair from her eyes. 

He wasn’t him. The Sparrow had never really even known her long enough  _ to  _ fail her. The same went the other way. They could care about one another without any of the pain that had come, pain that she knew the Sparrow was aware of. 

It occurred to her that she could choose to be with this one for the rest of her life, but she would never say the thought out loud. He wasn’t him, but he’d know what she’d do ultimately. They could seek comfort in one another, but they could not be together forever. They were, quite literally, from different worlds.

“Five one time broke into Reginald’s office,” Vanya told him. She was pulling off the Sparrow’s clothes as she said it, more than anything for something to do with her hands as she admitted something that she and Five had sworn never to tell anyone when they had been twelve years old. Five had told her he would give her any present for their birthday that year. She figured later that that was when he had started constructing theories on time travel. He had been the most thoughtful he had ever been with her the year before he left like he was trying to fill her memories with good ones before he had gone. When she had been angry at him in the years following his disappearance, she had thought that he had known that he would never come home to her. 

She took off her own clothes, then, watching his eyes trail her movements. He made it clear he was still listening to what he was saying though, looking up at her eyes every few seconds. She pulled the hand with the tattoo of the Sparrow, wordlessly urging him to touch her. He obliged. “I had begged him to find information on my birth mother. It was all I wanted, and I knew with his power that he could find it. He did. I have the address memorized and her name. It’s not much, but it will help you when you start to look. There’s news articles too, if you really search for them. I was one of a few born in Russia, and I might be wrong but I’m pretty sure I was the only girl in that specific region.” 

“What if she had moved?” the Sparrow asked. His finger pinched her nipple, and she sucked in air. 

“It’s not much,” she acquiesced. “But it’s a start.”

“It’s not very romantic to be pushing someone else on me while we’re in bed together.”

Laughter bubbled up to her throat. The Sparrow had never seen much genuine mirth from her, and it saddened her. It also served as a reminder that he needed to find the counterpart to herself. They could have many years together, to grow. Vanya could not imagine why she would ever not want to be with Five. She hoped it would be the same for her counterpart. She did not know, but she hoped that the Sparrow could have a chance at something. She could not bear leaving him when she knew he had nothing to hope for. 

“You have to be nice to her. Her powers are stronger than yours.”

He laughed. “You say that so confidently.”

“Believe me,” she told him, not a single breath of humor escaping her voice with this topic. She didn’t want him to know the destruction she could cause. That was part of the beauty of this arrangement- they didn’t really get to see the bad parts. 

It was also why they never could have been together though. 

“Alright,” he replied. “Is there anything else I should know?” 

“I’ll write down everything I know,” she promised. “How much time do you think we have?”

“An hour? Maybe two?”

She pulled him on top of her. “Let’s make it worth it.”

***

Five estimated his body to be about twenty three when he retired from the Commission the second time (this time formally.) His contract for a new body was up, though, and though the thought of living a little longer from the body he currently had just grazed the edges of his conscience. He had done unspeakable things to get that body, and he would take it. 

He didn’t want to think of how dying a little sooner had a certain appeal either. 

The body he chose was older than the other members of his family, a choice he had made only mildly out of pettiness. He did make sure that it was not quite as old as his true age, mainly because he wanted to be with Vanya as long as he could (and he felt, since he had seen her die many times over, that it was fair that he would likely die before her when they died of natural causes.) 

He ran a hand through his hair experimentally, gazing into a mirror. He felt the age more clearly, but he appreciated it. All of the energy he had had from a young body had been grating, leaving a sense of restlessness at all times. Streaks of gray were layered in, but his hair was still primarily black. 

It was really stupid that he wondered what Vanya would think when she saw him, but he had the thought anyways. 

He did a little research in the Commission’s files of the timeline before he would be formally escorted to the time of his choosing. He wanted to make sure that he arrived at a good time. 

His hands stopped moving as he realized something. The Sparrow had saved Allison’s life. 

Five didn’t enjoy the concept of life debts. It was something that he ultimately agreed with in his moral coding, but he didn’t know how to say that he owed not just one but two debts to the Sparrow. Without thinking at all, he started searching the database before he found Vanya’s counterpart to the Sparrow world. 

He found her immediately. She was not named Vanya, which of course made sense but still made him double take. She lived in a small town near Moscow now. She was unwed, no kids. He noted with a hitch of his breath that she also played violin. He wrote down all of the information, wondering idly if  _ Olena  _ would care that she was having her privacy taken away. To be fair, he had also noted that Olena was searching privately for people like her. It had shocked him, not even realizing that if Reginald hadn’t taken them in how confusing that would have to be. He hoped that he was helping her by ensuring she wouldn’t be alone.   


She was not ever going to cause an apocalypse, something that had made him frown. It felt like an injustice that Vanya had been slated to end the world multiple times over. Even if Five had been the person to suffer most from it technically, or at least to suffer the longest, the most horrifying thing after he had known Vanya would cause it was what it had meant for _ her _ . Then again, he reminded himself, Olena had never had her powers suppressed. They had grown as she had grown, and he wondered how much being  _ forced  _ to perform those powers had forced him and his family to do harm with them. 

Once Five had gathered the information, choosing to take a risk in seeing something he’d rather not and going to the day that the Sparrow would have saved Allison. He landed in front of what was now called the Sparrow Academy, blinking inside to where he knew he would find them. 

They were, fortunately, both clothed at this point. The Sparrow had seen him first, glancing up in what was almost gratitude. It confused Five thoroughly, and he cleared his throat. 

“Five?” Vanya asked. She looked confused at what she saw. His mind went back to when he had looked into the mirror, and he wanted to roll his eyes at his own vanity.  _ Or _ , a small voice that sounded suspiciously like a voice he hadn’t heard much of since he had lived his days out at the end of the world,  _ you can’t understand the thought that Vanya would want you at this point after everything you’ve been through, and you’re trying to formulate ways in which she wouldn’t want you.  _

He knew that even if he didn’t look appealing to her, he would certainly look completely deranged if he asked Delores to stop speaking. 

“Hi, Vanya,” he managed weakly. 

She glanced over at the Sparrow. He nodded to her. They looked like they already had closure from one another for a long time. Vanya stood slowly, and Five spoke, gruffly, before he could lose his confidence, “I have all of the information for… Well, her name isn’t Vanya. It’s Olena. She’s looked for years for someone like her, so maybe lead with that.”

The Sparrow thanked him, and Five did a double take. Vanya looked amused. Five frowned at her but gave his counterpart a slip of paper that came from one of the pockets in his suit. 

“Will you talk to them before you leave?” Vanya asked the Sparrow softly. He nodded. They didn’t even hug before they parted. He blinked away, presumably to somewhere else in the mansion based on what Vanya had implored of him. 

Before Five could ponder this further, Vanya’s lips were on his own. 

“We have to leave,” she said firmly, moments after she had broken away from his dazed face.   
  


He didn’t argue, just taking her hand and gathering energy in his own. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! I’ll try to update this sooner rather than later. There will be two more chapters after this.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long!!! I hope that the length of it makes it up for y’all!!! This is the final chapter before the epilogue. I’ve had so much fun so far, and this story will be done pretty quick. Major thanks to the discord people for encouraging this chapter (esp. Blue Sam, who bribed me with art for it)!!! 💕💕💕

“Where are we?” Vanya asked, searching their surroundings. There was a small cabin ahead of them, but they were surrounded entirely by woods everywhere else. It would have reminded her of her time with Leonard, but, in a peculiar way, it almost seemed like the cabin was designed to be the antithesis of Leonard’s. 

Five glanced over at her, narrowing his eyes. Gruffly, he asked, “Are you hurt at all?” 

Vanya examined her body. There were technically bruises on her, but the Sparrows had not ever been able to hurt her in her time there. “I’m fine.”

His jaw clenched, but he nodded curtly, seemingly thankful that she was, at the very least, leaving the Sparrows unscathed. 

“We’re at a safehouse,” he explained. “Something I put together during my most recent time in the Commission.”

“So you did join the Commission again.”

He nodded, grabbing her hand and teleporting with her just outside of the door of a cabin. “We’ll go back to the others in the morning and decide what to do. Now that you’re out of danger, we can discuss what exactly we intend to do moving forward.”

“I wasn’t in danger,” Vanya mumbled. “Besides, the Sparrows are not our enemies. It’s Reginald that is the problem.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “I know Reginald is the problem, V, but he’s made them into weapons. I know not all of them are necessarily bound to follow his orders, but we do need to prepare in the likely case that some do.” 

He wasn’t wrong, really. Even among the Umbrella Academy, the least loyal members still had Reginald’s claws in the depths of their consciousness. Reginald had been talented that way, making himself the sun that they were to follow. They had never known what a father was supposed to be like, so it had been easy to let him teach an example of what he expected of them. The Sparrows had never known a life without Reginald, so it made sense that at least a few would follow any order he gave. 

“I don’t think…” she trailed off, clearing her throat guiltily. 

“He saved Allison’s life,” Five pointed out, somewhere between begrudging respect and hesitant gratitude. “He kept you safe.”

“Do you hate me for this?” Vanya whispered. She would understand, truly, if he did. 

“I don’t, V. I understand it.” 

She exhaled a breath she’d held in quite a while, an invisible weight finally being lifted from her shoulders. “You know why I did it, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Seemingly without thought, he blurted, “I love you too.”

Vanya frowned. “I didn’t say that.”

He flicked a brow up, and she realized there was no point protesting there. She had just spent months with an alternate universe’s counterpart of him. It definitely said a lot. 

“How long was your time in the Commission this time around?” Vanya asked him. They still hadn’t gone inside the cabin, and she wondered if there was a reason for it or if Five’s mind was just focused on something else.

“Technically longer than the first time, but not an egregious stretch of time.” 

She raised her brows, ultimately deciding if Five wasn’t telling her, he assumed she wouldn’t want to know. An image popped into her head of Five agreeing to whatever they asked for an older body, and the Commission just had him work until he had reached his forties again physically. She realized they were still holding hands, so she squeezed his hand, trying to offer comfort. 

“I love you,” Vanya said, realizing she hadn’t. 

He teleported a final time, and they were inside of the cabin. Her first impression of the place had been right- he’d tried as much as he could to make this unlike Leonard’s cabin. The interior felt more like how she’d always pictured a home for them would look, with bookshelves lining the walls and a chalkboard for Five (she had told him once when they were very young that he was not allowed to write on the walls of their future home, and he’d apparently listened). 

“We’re alone here?”

He nodded, “Yeah, it’s safe.” 

That’s not what she’d been getting at. She settled onto the armchair in the small living area, looking up at him expectantly. “So no one’s watching us?” Vanya prompted.

“Well, yeah, that’s kind- _oh.”_

She raised her brows at him amusedly, and he scowled, stalking forward until he was leaning down and looking her in the eyes so she could better see his disapproval. 

She probably shouldn't like him looking like that as much as she did. 

“Is this the part where you spank me for being a bad girl who slept with an alternate reality’s version of you?”

“You’d like that too much.”

“Damn, he would’ve spanked me for that comment alone.” 

Five inhaled sharply. 

“Don’t try to act like you weren’t jealous,” Vanya told him, pulling him closer by his tie. “Don’t try to act like you didn’t think about it- the noises I made when he was inside of me, wondering if I was whimpering for you or him.”

He didn’t budge, eyes resolute and just a little cold. 

She _really_ liked him looking like that, whether she should or shouldn’t, and she wanted to see him snap.

Her lips found his ear, breathing, “When he was gentle, the noises I made for you, trust me on that. But when he bent me over his knee and spanked me, or when he wrapped his hand around my throat as he fucked me against a wall, or when he pulled my hair just a little too roughly, or when he’d finish on my chest?”

She could hear the pounding of his heart, the unsteadiness to his breathing. She continued speaking, standing so tensely that any second she knew he would snap, “Every noise I made then was for _him.”_

Vanya expected him to crack then, but he didn’t. He asked, with a flick of his brow, “And why was that?”

“I didn’t think you’d had it in you,” she goded, knowing full-well he did, wanting this to be messy and rough and all-consuming. She wanted to feel everything she had bottled up, even with his Sparrow counterpart. She wanted it to be painful, just a little, for the moments that would come afterwards- when he’d murmur how well she’d done while he cleaned her up, when she’d curl against his chest and he’d wrap her in his arms, when she’d say ‘I love you’ and not feel hollow or want to be with anyone else as she said the words. 

“I could prove you wrong,” he said, pulling away just so she could see his eyes as he tipped up her chin to him. He ran his hand over her neck, not pushing in at all, just resting it there after feeling the fluttering of her pulse that she could hear as clear as his own. “If you begged for it.”

She understood, then, why he was forcing this calm. In an unorthodox way, he was trying to get her to confirm that she wanted this before he did anything. He wanted her explicit consent, wanted confirmation that he could touch her the way the other version of himself had. 

She pressed her forehead to his own, a tender act that completely contrasted the vulgarity of her next words. He asked for begging though, and she offered it up easily, words spilling from her lips in an amalgamation of incomprehensible syllables. Vanya wondered if anything she was asking for even made sense, but he was grinning at her that, feral as it was, did not hold the same callousness that she associated with the Sparrow when he had been rough with her. 

Five blinked her to the wall, gripping her neck as she had asked for. She realized, without thinking, she had asked for many of the things she’d done with his Sparrow counterpart. 

She also realized that, despite him not being there, Five was trying to fuck her better. 

He caged her in, much larger than her. The hand not on her neck was lifting her up easily, but he shifted her to where her legs were wrapped around him, holding her more securely to the wall. 

“Tell me what you want, Vanya,” he growled, and she tried to shamelessly grind against him but his nails dug into the skin at her hip, stilling her movements. 

“I want you,” she whimpered, and it would’ve been a sweet thing to say if she hadn’t added the next portion. “I want you to fuck me against the wall while you choke me.” 

His lips quirked, “So _eloquent.”_

She glared, angling her neck towards him, forcing him to press harder to the skin there. He obliged, but he grabbed her hand, settling it against the hand digging his nails into her hips. “If you need me to stop at any second, squeeze my hand,” he murmured quickly. 

When she nodded, he gripped her neck, barking out for her to take off her pants. She whined pitifully, unbuttoning her jeans and pushing them down to her knees. When he noticed she struggled in taking them off, he abandoned his hand from her neck to quickly pull them off of her while the other hand held her up. He looked at her lace panties like he was tempted to rip them off of her, but he slipped them off instead, tossing them away. 

Once she was unclothed from the waist down, he caged her to the wall again, working on his own trousers. At the sound of his belt buckle hitting the floor, she jerked her hips up to his own. He didn’t reproach her this time, didn’t dig his nails into her hips like he had before. Instead, he unzipped his jeans, pushing them down with his boxers before putting wrapping his hand around her throat again. 

“He fucked you like this, didn’t he, Vanya?” Five asked. He lifted the hand on her hip a bit, pressing it to her hand covering it, silently reminding her what to do if it was too much.

Shakily, she nodded. 

“You liked it when he choked you? Liked feeling powerless when his cock was inside of you?” Five growled. She moaned, nodding again. 

His lips curled, eyes darkening. “I bet he had absolutely no idea how powerful you were, sweetheart. Didn’t know you could kill him in an instant even if he was in control. He didn’t know you like I do, know that you could destroy the world at any second you chose. How his little honeypot could have gotten information just as easily by violent means instead.” 

She shook her head; the Sparrow had not known at all how powerful she was. His grin went manic at the concept, grip loosening just a little in a way that made her think it was an involuntary response to the knowledge that he had more of her than the Sparrow had ever gotten. 

_‘Don’t you know, Five?’_ she thought. _‘Don’t you know that you’ve always had all of me?’_

“He didn’t know my angel was a world destroyer,” he crooned, not even choking her in the instant, just running his thumb over her racing pulse. “That she could kill him with a single thought.”

“No, he didn’t,” she gasped out, able to speak because his hand wasn’t squeezing at all. 

Five’s eyes shone with pride. “It’s a shame that you didn’t kill him.” 

Vanya frowned at him, and he moved his hand from her throat completely, moving to where both of his hands were at her waist. She wanted to ask if he was seriously about to _punish_ her with vanilla sex for the comment, but he instead brushed the hand that had started to form bruises along her hip against her heat. 

“Did you even train your powers while you were with him?” Five asked, sounding more reproachful than he had in the moments before, sinking his middle and index finger to the knuckle inside of her with no resistance. She shook her head, and he scowled. “Unacceptable. You’ll be training with me soon enough, but you need to keep practicing with it.”

He brushed his thumb to her clit, chiding her, “You have to be more careful, Vanya. He protected you, yes, but if he had turned on you or was unable to, what would have happened?”

She ground her hips against his hand, and he snapped, “Answer the question.”

“I w-would.” She surmised it might have been easier to speak when he was strangling her than when he was slipping his finger in and out of her. “I would have gotten hurt.”

He snorted, “Or the world would have ended.” 

She nodded, thrusting into his hand, “Or th-that.”

“I wouldn’t have been mad if you had ended the world for that reason,” he commented. “However, you _are_ to make sure your powers are both under control and easily accessible for you, Vanya, and I think you know I’m going to have to punish you for not training while we were apart.” 

“Is this where the spanking comes in?” Vanya asked, sounding way too hopeful to her own ears. 

“I would have liked our first time to be romantic, you know,” Five remarked, lifting her up and walking her back to the couch and settling them down on it. Despite his words, he bent her over his lap, running his hand over her ass. 

“We have time for that later,” she said, angling her bottom up, trying to encourage him. 

Five ran his finger over the slickness that had run down her thigh. “I ought to punish you with missionary, considering you’re soaking just at the mention of me spanking you.” 

“The choking and fingering did it too, rest assured.”

She could sense his frown; she didn’t look up because she knew what he was about to say would be easier for him if he wasn’t looking at her. “He never hurt you, did he? He respected… he respected it when you asked him to stop or be more gentle?”

“You know you’re not him,” Vanya said softly. “So whatever he did wouldn’t mean anything about _you.”_

Five pulled her up quickly, studying her gaze. His eyes were stormy in a way she had never seen before, and she was well-aware it wasn’t directed at her. “He hurt you, then?” 

“No,” Vanya said quickly, already imagining a horror scenario in her mind of Five killing him. “He didn’t ever hurt me. He always stopped if I asked.”

“Why didn’t you just say that then?”

She glanced away, not sure why she felt shy after all they’d done since going to this cabin. “I just worry that you think… less of me, for all of it. What I did with him.”

“You really think you could do anything to disgust me, Vanya?” He pulled her to where she was just resting on his lap, running his finger over her thigh. _“Nothing_ you could do would make me think less of you.”

“Does it not bother you?” Vanya asked, voicing concerns she had not even thought of until this moment. “That I’d let him be rough like that? That I’m not the shy girl you grew up with?”

“No, Vanya, it doesn’t. I love you, and it’s not because you’re shy. I think I love you most when you _aren’t._ When you sound defiant and confident and completely comfortable with me? It lets me know that I’m the only one who you trust to see the rougher edges.” 

She tried to prove him wrong, and desperately wanted him to be proven wrong. Vanya didn’t know how to handle such love, so freely given, not yet. In order to confirm that he would reject her and not want her, that he would be sickened by her now and he’d gone before she was fully attached, she whispered, “I called him ‘Daddy.’ Doesn’t that bother you?” 

“You did _what_ now?” 

“I knew it,” she said, looking away and biting her lip. “I knew that you’d think less of me.”

He scowled. “That’s not why I’m upset.” 

She shook her head, “It’s fine, Five. I should’ve known when I went to him that you wouldn’t forgive me.”

“You called _somebody else_ that?” Five blurted. 

Vanya blushed. _“That’s_ what you’re mad about? Of all the things I admitted, that’s the kicker?”

“You’re never going to call anyone else that after me, right?” Five asked. 

She blinked. “No, I won’t.”

“No, you won’t…?” Five prompted. 

“No, I won’t, _Daddy.”_

He exhaled before frowning. “You trusted him enough to call him that but not enough to explain the extent of your powers?”

Vanya opened her mouth, started to speak, and closed it. 

“After I fuck you, Vanya,” Five said, bending her over his lap again. “After your little ass is red from my hands and my cum is inside of you and you are curled up and safe in my arms, we’re going to have a chat about just how _many_ people you have called that.”

Vanya angled her ass up, wanting him to make good on one of his promises. 

“I cannot _believe_ you called him that,” he grumbled, finally spanking her. She yelped, and he soothed the ache with his hand, reaching to finger her soaked pussy again. “Of _all_ the things you could have done…” 

“I think the p-point was that we just did _all_ of the things we could have done.”

He smacked her ass again, warming up to the action. “You are _mine_ , Vanya. Say you’re mine. Say you’re Daddy’s girl.”

“I’m D-Daddy’s girl,” she whimpered. “I’m your girl.” 

“Good girl,” he cooed, spanking her once more but immediately stroking the skin after. Her thighs spread apart, and he sunk his fingers inside of her, rubbing where she wanted his attention most with his thumb. “You’re nobody else’s, right, angel?” 

She shook her head, and he pulled her back up to where she was facing him. 

“My good girl,” he praised, running his finger over her clit. “Soaking my fingers because she wants me so bad. Did you think of me when I was gone?”

She trembled, and he curled his fingers. “Tell me, Vanya.” 

“I th-th, _Five,_ please, h-harder.”

“Only when you tell me you thought of me.”

“I thought of you for almost twenty years,” she whimpered. “I missed you so much, Five.”

“Oh, I know _that._ What I was asking was if you thought of fucking _me_ when his cock was inside of you?” 

“You really are the jealous type, huh?” Vanya asked. At the loss of his fingers, she pleaded, “Wait, no, no, touch me. Please!”

He shoved his fingers into her mouth, staring down at her. 

“I _know_ you wanted me,” he said as she sucked his finger. “My fingers are coated in your cum, little Vanya. You are tasting how much you want me. Now be a good girl and _say_ it.” 

She pulled off his fingers with a pop. “I thought of you, Daddy. When he was inside of me, I kept imagining it was you.”

“Did you come only when you thought of me?” 

She nodded, and he smiled. 

“Lay down,” he commanded. “I’m gonna taste you too, angel.” 

Her thighs shook, sprawling her body out on the couch as she spread her legs for him. 

He knelt in front of her, settling her thighs on his shoulder. Before his mouth found her cunt, he said, “I’ve waited for you almost all my life, V. And now that I’ve got you, I don’t think I can bear the thought of us not being together ever again. We’re going to be each other’s forever, right?”

She nodded vigorously, and he smiled up at her, running a finger over the slickness against her thighs before leaning down, pressing his mouth to her cunt. When the lights completely shut off in the cabin, Five lifted up, quickly saying, “Control it, sweetheart. I’ve got you.” 

“C-can’t control it,” she said, wondering how much had broken already and she’d been too out of it to notice. “Sorry.” 

“We’ll work on it,” he assured her. “Just try to relax, okay?” 

She nodded, knowing he might not see it in the dark room, but his mouth found her again. She tried to relax, but it was hard when she had been worked up by him for a while and still hadn’t come. He lapped up all of the results of keying her up before moving to her clit, running his tongue against the bundle of nerves more roughly when she gripped his hair and yanked it. 

As she heard glass shatter distantly and whimpered out hopefully to him, he pulled away roughly. She made a betrayed noise at the lack of contact while he gripped her thighs and jumped them to what she surmised to be a bedroom, landing on the bed. 

She heard him pulling off his clothes, quickly moving to follow and abandon the rest of her clothes, which was just her top by that point. 

“I’m going to fuck you now, V. Is that okay?” 

Vanya nodded, realized their eyes still hadn’t managed to adjust to the darkness, and said, “Yes, _please.”_

She felt his erection against her leg, and, without thought, blurted, “Can you be gentle?”

It was an odd request, considering she had wanted him to be rough before, but she knew he understood. She wanted, in that moment, to have _her_ Five, the one she’d loved since they were children and had waited for for years. 

“Of course, sweetheart,” he murmured, softest she’d ever heard him speak. “Whatever you want me to be, I can be it.” 

He settled his palms under her knees, nudging her thighs apart wider, seeking to accomadate his much larger body to bracket between her thighs. She reached up, holding onto his shoulders, asking a request that had been asked of her many times in the past few months, “Tell me you love me?”

She could admit to herself, in that moment, that when she had gone to the Sparrow that night, all she had wanted to hear him say that, to hear those words from his voice, even if it would never hold the inflection of a man who waited a lifetime for her. She had _stayed_ with the Sparrow all that time because she could love any version of him, but they had both know who she was truly waiting for. It made her a little sad, knowing that he had had that knowledge, and she _hoped_ that he would find her counterpart. 

Vanya couldn’t see his face, but she knew his eyes would hold the tenderness that they only ever had around her. She knew that he’d be staring reverently ahead of him, even if, like her, he struggled to see her as well. That he would just have to sense her presence to be filled with all of the love and softness that he’d never tried to hide and she could, therefore, never doubt was there. 

“I love you,” Five told her. “You’re my best friend, were my _lifeline_ when I was alone, and the person I could never mind waiting for because it gave me a tether to hold onto, a promise of what would happen when I could finally come home.”

He pressed against her, the tip of him nudging her entrance. “I’d wait a lifetime again if I had to for you. I’d break time and slit throats and truly become a killer for you. I already have done them all, but, if I had to again? I would in an instant. As long as I knew that when I did, you’d be waiting for me when I came home.”

“And, so, I love you, V,” he pushed inside of her, letting her adjust to the size of him. “But I also _cherish_ you, _adore_ you, am _devoted_ to you, and _worship_ you. You may have caused the end of the world, but you’re the only reason I care for it to exist anyways.” 

His lips found hers, his kiss more soft than the words he’d whispered. He ran his fingers through her hair, not pulling, just stroking her hair like he’d done one night after she’d had a nightmare and crawled into his bed. Even when he was inside of her, rutting into her, he was still her best friend. 

“I love you, Five,” she said when he broke away, unable to say much more because of how much she was feeling in that instant. “You’re my best friend.”

He kissed her again, and she could feel him smile against her lips. She opened her mouth, letting him poke his tongue inside, raking a hand through his hair and tugging on one of the gray strands she’d noticed earlier. 

“Do you mind it?” Five asked her, moving to kiss along her jaw. 

“Mind what?”

“How I look? My age?” 

She frowned. “Absolutely not. You look _great_ , but you could be in your eighties and it wouldn’t change anything for me. You’re not eighty, though, right? How long were you gone?”

“My consciousness is mid-60’s,” he told her. “And I was just gone a handful of years, don’t worry.”

“I’m sorry I made you feel you had to go back to them,” she whispered, guilt weighing her. 

“I’m not.” He pulled nearly all the way out of her before pushing back inside. “I wasn’t happy inside of that body, anyways. It was a selfish decision too.” 

His movements became just a little rough then. “The way you looked at me… like I was a _child._ How I knew exactly _why_ one of the first things you did when you came to this alternate universe was go to _him.”_

“Fuck, V,” he grunted, lifting her hips so he could let her take him even deeper, like he wanted to get closer, like if he got far enough inside of her he could be buried there, could reach all the way until their souls combined together. “I went looking for you that night, thinking you might be dead, and you were fucking him.”

She canted her hips, trying to achieve his percieved goal. “You know what I really wanted, Five, you’ve gotta know.” 

“I know, V,” he kissed her again, nipping her bottom lip. “I know, angel, I know you. It’s my fault for leaving, and I know that.”

She started crying, and she knew he was too. “Five, it’s not your fault. You were trying to get away from Reginald.”

“And I left you with him,” he choked. “How much would have changed if I hadn’t?”

“But you _did,_ and it doesn’t matter now. We’re together. We’ll be together for the rest of our lives.”

He pressed his finger to her clit, barely even having to touch her for her to come. He came with her, and she realized it was her words that had done it for him. He collapsed against her, breathing heavily.

Vanya yawned, blushing as she did. “Sorry, it’s been a long day.” 

“It’s fine,” he mumbled. “I’m going to go grab a washcloth, okay? I’ll be right back.”

She nodded, and he blinked away, the light of his power letting her be able to see him completely for just a second. Seconds later, he was nudging the wascloth to her skin, soothing in his movements. 

When she caught his hand, pulling him to her, he let her. She cuddled up to his chest, and he wrapped her up into his arms. 

“My Vanya,” he whispered. “My love.” 

“You forgive me?” Vanya asked, thinking of all the times she had imagined this imploding on them all.

“Always, my love.”

And she realized that even if everything had crumbled to dust from the explosion, he’d still hold her in his arms once he’d climbed from the detritus. Because he’d done it for her before, and he would willingly do it again.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!! The final chapter will be up pretty soon!!!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been such a wild ride! Thank you to Blue Sam from discord for bribing me to finish with art and for the rest of the discord for all the encouragement along the way. Thank you to everyone who has left kudos, comments, or bookmarks too!! This fic was much better received than I had expected. To be honest, I didn’t want to finish it because I will miss writing it.😭😭 However, I am going to content myself with posting outtakes or a few not-quite-outtakes that don’t necessarily align with the story but I want to write anyways. Mainly because Sparrow!Five has been just SO fun to write.  
> To clarify, whenever I mention “Olena” that is just Vanya’s counterpart in this fic. Since she wasn’t adopted by Reginald in this, I gave her another name. Also, for writing purposes, it’s so much easier when I don’t gotta distinguish between two separate characters like I had to do for Five and the Sparrow lbr. 😭  
> Before Fiveya week and kinktober, I fully intend to have, at the very least these fics done: Blinding Lights, Adjustment Period, Human, and It’s Nothing but Time and a Face that You Lose. Lightning in a Bottle, as I do not know how long it will be, may not be done before then. Depending on how long it is, it very well may not be. Blinding Lights is going to my priority for the multi-chaps right now, followed by Human after that.

He woke to Vanya shaking him urgently. 

“What is it?” Five asked quickly, searching around for something he could use as a weapon.

“Nightmare,” Vanya mumbled, glancing down and blushing in shame. 

“Oh,” Five breathed, relaxing a little and sling his arm around her shoulder. “Okay, I’ve got you. You’re okay.” 

She rested her head on him, “Sorry for waking you up.”

“No, it’s fine,” Five assured. “Think I told you a thousand times when we were kids that if you had a nightmare you could wake me up and I’d help you. That offer’s always gonna stand.”

She laughed breathily, and he kissed the crown of her head, lips curving into a soft smile that she wouldn’t be able to see because of how she was positioned against him but felt nice to do regardless. He hadn’t really done a lot of smiling in a long time. “Glad to know you’re still my best friend,” Vanya told him, nuzzling against his chest. 

“You made me pinky-promise when we were eight years old that we would be best friends forever,” Five said dryly, trying to hear her laugh. She had seemed so startled when she had woken him up, and he wanted to make her feel better. “Pinky-promises are sacred, Vanya. Especially when you’re eight. Can’t back down from that kind of commitment.” 

“Had I known that you would be so committed to pinky-promises, I would have made you pinky-promise to not to hog the blankets too,” Vanya said, craning her neck to smile up at him. 

“I do not hog the blankets,” Five said, laying them back down. “You just sleep too far away.” 

“This is a king size comforter, Five, you definitely hog the covers.” 

“I like to be cocooned in the warmth. You just don’t get it.”

“Half of the comforter was on the floor!”

“I’m starting to think _I’m_ the one with nightmares, and I’m currently in one where we have domestic squabbles like an old married couple.”

“Being an old, squabbling married couple is a nightmare setting to you?”

“When my wife could cause the apocalypse because I kept stealing the covers?” Five teased. “Absolutely.”

“You shouldn’t joke about the apocalypse,” Vanya frowned. 

“Oh, _shit,_ will you cause it if I do?”

“I want a divorce,” Vanya said, climbing on top of him and grabbing his hand to touch her. 

“You’ll have to agree to marry me before I can divorce you.”

“Sounds like a trap.”

“Are you going to fall for it?”

Vanya grinned, exposing her teeth to him and making his heart stutter a beat. She noticed, flicking her gaze down. “I can hear you react when I smile,” she commented before blushing. 

He smiled at her, resisting the urge to tell her how adorable she was when she blushed so he could tell her, “Don’t talk so dirty, V.” 

“Shut up, or I’ll make you.”

“Is that a promise?”

* * *

Vanya settled onto Five’s hips, and he glanced up at her with a lazy smirk, “Vanya, we do have to go back to the others eventually.” 

“How soon is eventually?”

“Soon.”

“What if we’re quick?”

“You’re going to get a UTI,” Five commented, settling his palms against her hips. “In the past six hours alone, you have tempted your fate there.”

“You can spend the time it takes to recover taking proper care of me, then.”

“You’re insatiable.”

“You love it.”

He didn’t argue. Rather, he pulled her by the sleeves of the commandeered button-down she had on, causing her to let out a yelp. Five grinned at her, flicking off the buttons. “Can’t get enough of me, Vanya?” Five asked, one hand closing around one of her breasts. “Can’t last, what… fourteen minutes now, without me?” 

The mocking tone to his voice was both doing a lot for her and causing a slight irritation, and she curled her lips into a small smile, blinking at him innocently, “We could always go back to the others now, Daddy.”

Five’s eyes flashed, and she giggled as he flipped them over, fully pulling off his shirt from her body. She was left in just a pair black cotton panties, laying in a supine position and staring up at him. “We can wait, sweetheart,” Five told her, skirting his palm over her ribcage. 

“So generous for me,” she mocked, and he kissed her cheek. 

“Stop being a brat,” he ordered, and she listened easily, wanting him to reward her for good behavior more than punishing her for bad behavior.

“We really are going to have to be quick, Five,” Vanya said as he started mouthing down her sternum. “We don’t have time for- _oh.”_

He glanced up at her from between her legs. How he managed to get there that quickly was beyond her. Maybe she had blacked out when he had started placing hot, open-mouthed kisses to her stomach. “You were saying, V?”

“Take as much time as you need.”

“As you wish,” he said, grinning at her devilishly. 

“I hate you.”

“Oh, don’t bother lying about that. If this experience has taught us anything, it is that you would have gone to extreme measures to be with me,” Five drawled, hooking his fingers around her panties and slipping them down her thighs. Vanya was starting to think Five enjoyed giving head as much as receiving it, and the way he was staring at her glistening cunt in fascination confirmed her theory. He glanced up at her again, eyebrows raised. She knew that when he rested his head between her legs, his five o’clock shadow that he hadn’t bothered with this morning would scratch her inner thighs. Vanya let out a small whimper of anticipation at the thought. “You would do anything to have me, wouldn’t you, my Vanya?” 

She rolled her eyes because he already knew the answer. “Fucking your counterpart wasn’t exactly a difficult task.”

“What did I say about being bratty?”

She frowned. “I’ll be good… I do have to ask, though, did you ever think for an instant that I was just sleeping with the Sparrow for information?”

He snorted, “No.”

“Really?”

“You were fooling no one, sweetheart,” he confirmed. 

“Wait, did the others think I was just…?”

“Allison is likely planning our wedding as we speak.” 

Vanya gasped, “Don’t let her do that, she would make it unnecessarily huge. I want a courthouse affair.”

“Noted,” Five laughed before frowning. “Why did you have to bring up marrying me? That spoils the mood for the rough and primal one I was trying to set.” 

“You’ve somehow managed to become even more of a dork since we parted years ago,” Vanya quipped, laying down against the pillows of their bed. “If only Ben were here, he'd say that nerd squad levelled up or something.”

Five grinned, “Probably would rant to us about Klaus and Diego being idiots and needing a break with the smart ones for a little bit.”

“He _was_ the one who coined the term ‘nerd squad,’” Vanya remembered. “Something about how we had the highest amount of brain cells in use among us and that’s why we were five, six, and seven.” 

“Still put us only at a collective 18 braincells when added together,” Five noted. “Although 18 among three would be a better average at least than 10 among 4.” 

“I don’t think Ben meant it literally,” Vanya said. Quietly, she mumbled, “I really miss him.” 

“I do too, V,” Five said, starting to crawl up to her but she pushed his head back down, making him shake with silent laughter. “Don’t want to talk about it?”

“Not yet,” Vanya said, no humor in her tone despite the light way Five had spoken to her. She remembered too easily the blank way in which Ben had stared at her. “When we get back to the others, we can figure out our plan.”

Five nodded. “We’ll stay here about another hour or two, and then we’ll go to them.” 

Vanya smiled softly, thankful for Five’s understanding of her concerns as she brushed through his hair with her fingers. “The others are going to be so tired of us by the end of the week.”

“They can build their own cabin if they’re so inclined,” Five mused, running his fingers over her folds and gathering slickness into them. “Make it within a far enough radius that your powers don’t kill them all.” 

“I’m shocked I haven’t killed you with my powers,” Vanya grumbled. She was about to add more snark to her statement, but she was cut off with a moan as his tongue flicked against her. She felt it was entirely unfair of him to be this talented at the task, and she tried to convey that through a series of whimpers.

Five obviously didn’t get the message, lapping up all she had to offer as his thumb picked up the slack against her neglected clit. She figured she had probably still been a little keyed up and overstimulated because she was already a wreck before he touched the bundle of nerves. Once his rough and calloused thumb was rubbing eagerly against it, she was trembling underneath him. 

She gripped his hair more urgently, guiding his movements like he seemed to enjoy doing with her. Vanya didn’t necessarily take charge often, had always been submissive by nature. She assumed that Five had always been the same way, except for the other side of the spectrum. She liked to think that they could be different for one another though, thrusting brazenly against his face. 

Vanya had been right about the feeling of his stubble on her thighs, and she nearly shrieked as it scratched against her. She could hear from the other room books flying off the shelves, but she could not bring herself to care as she saw flashes of white when she rolled her eyes back and arched her hips off of the bed.

Sated, she slackened against the mattress again, resting comfortably on the mountain of pillows. Five looked entirely too smug about his own abilities as he climbed on top of her, wrenching his boxers off of himself so that he was completely bared to her when his eyes rested against her own. 

“Nobody else would make me feel this way,” Five murmured. “You’re it for me, and I hope you don’t mind it if I keep you.”

“I don’t mind,” she told him, kissing him softly and making a wounded noise at the taste of herself on his tongue. “You’re it for me too.”

She noticed his erection against her thigh and asked, “Want me to take care of that?”

“I want to be inside of you,” Five said quickly. “Is that okay?”

“Of course,” Vanya said, spreading her legs so Five could more easily bracket himself between her thighs. “I haven’t said ‘no’ the past… however many times. And before you tell me the answer to that, I don’t want to know. Plausible deniability for when I inevitably have to be prescribed something for a urinary tract infection.” 

“I don’t think doctors would really judge that.”

“They haven’t been around you after decades of separation that ends in marathonfucking then.” 

“Too bad for them,” Five said, pulling her thighs up to enclose around his hips before guiding himself to her heat. “Too bad for you too, not getting to experience it until now.”

“You’re obscenely arrogant,” Vanya groaned, running her hand along his spine. “Why do I love you so much?”

“As I am obscenely arrogant,” Five commented, pulling out just a little before setting a steady, albeit slow, pace. “Wouldn’t that make my opinions as to why you love me beyond anything in the world a little skewed?” 

_“Obscenely_ arrogant,” she repeated, grinding against him to gain a little more friction. “Can you touch me again?”

He didn’t tease her, just reaching down and running his thumb over her clit. “Fuck, Vanya, how do you react _this_ much to me? You’re so perfect, so good at taking my-“

She leaned in, kissing him. Five was a talker, and she very much enjoyed it. However, if he kept talking like that while he was touching her and making her feel so full, she might pass out. He didn’t seem to mind that she’d effectively shut him up, and she commented against his mouth, “So, to clarify, the only way to get you to shut up is either distracting you with my mouth or my cunt.”

“You dirty talking has actually sent me to the Heavens, and, if you find me dead in an hour, it’s because you’ve officially killed me off,” Five told her.

“Unfortunately for you, we’re gonna have to work on your dirty talk, I think.”

“It’s not my fault that you started talking about us getting married,” Five argued recalcitrantly. He pressed his forehead to her own, eyeing her face. Their chests were against each other, so she knew he could feel the pounding of her chest against his skin. “I can’t be gross when you talk about us being _married_ so casually.”

“I’m p-pretty sure you started the marriage discussion,” Vanya remarked, but her voice was hitching again. Somehow, her body was managing to build her up again, and she was already feeling her stomach coiling. “I also think you’ve broken me because I’m already c-close.”

“As I was saying about the way you reacted to me,” he said, thrusting into her a little more roughly, noticing the implied cue she had given in going faster. He moved his free hand to roll against her nipple, trying to coax another peak out of her so that she could finally relax. “It’s like you were made for me, Vanya. Like we were-“

She screamed, and she was certain that all of the books from the other room had toppled over by the next orgasm. 

Vanya felt tears slip from her eyes as he continued fucking into her, trying to reach his own release. He moved his hands off of the more sensitive spots, instead brushing her hair from her eyes and thumbing off the tears from her cheeks. “Made just for me,” Five continued, thrusting into her desperately. She could tell he was starting to reach his climax too, that he would follow her in just a few seconds. The next words that spilled from his mouth were more incoherent, but she found she didn’t mind. 

“Just for you,” Vanya confirmed softly, and he came inside of her. 

He collapsed on top of her. The weight of him didn’t bother her; it was a comforting feeling, actually. It made her aware of how not alone she was when she was with Five, and a swell of affection for him rose at the thought, kissing the crown of his head and settling her hands back into his hair. 

“I want to take a shower and rest just a little before we go to the others,” Vanya told him, scratching his scalp. He was inhaling the scent of her in sharp gasping breaths, and she wasn’t sure if it was that he was taking the sensations of her in with the desperation she had seen in his eyes frequently in the past twenty four hours or if he was just that affected by all of the strain they had put on themselves in that time. “Can we do that?”

He nodded, pressing a kiss to her pulse. She could feel him smile against her skin as her heartbeat started to race against his lips. “You’re so cute,” he mumbled, making her blush and knowing perfectly well he would feel the way her skin heated up. 

“I missed you so much,” Vanya told him, with much more ease in that moment as he was not looking at her in that intense, piercing, all-encompassing way of his. He hummed in agreement, and she asked, “Are you sleepy?”

“If I say yes, and that I want to take a nap before we go, are you going to make fun of me?” 

“We didn’t sleep at all once I got up at about 2 in the morning, which, by the way, thanks for not being mad at me when I woke you up with a nightmare,” Vanya said. She had always struggled with nightmares, and when she had shook Five awake at night, she had worried he would act annoyed. He hadn’t, seeming more concerned than anything before she climbed on top of him. They hadn’t really had the chance to talk about the contents of the nightmare after that. 

Five smirked, “It was my pleasure.”

“You’re a dick,” Vanya complained. 

More seriously, like he was worried that he’d actually upset her with the comment, he told her, “Any time you have a nightmare, you can wake me up. I’ll protect you from whatever’s scaring you, I promise. Although, you’re probably a thousand times more threatening, anyways.”

“Does it feel weird?” Vanya asked, voicing a thought she had had fleetingly once this morning. “To go from being best friends at one point to… whatever we are now?”

Five glanced up, eyes sleepy but urgent, “No, Vanya, it just feels natural to me. I don’t know if that helps you, but I’ve always known that you were who I’d want to be with if I was given a choice.”

“I don’t think I absolutely understood how I felt,” Vanya admitted. “For quite a while, I think.” 

“That’s okay, V. Entirely understandable.”

“If you had been in this body,” Vanya forced herself to keep looking at him. “That night when you came to my apartment, I mean. If you had been this age physically and I had asked you to stay, would you have?”

“I don’t know,” Five said, voice filled with remorse. “I had my head up my ass, not staying with you. If I had, none of this would have happened at all.”

She sighed, a saddened sound rather than an impatient one. “I don’t regret it, though. It took us a while to get here, but we are here now. That’s what matters. We’ve got the rest of our lives now, and that’s pretty amazing in and of itself. There was a point in time when I did not know if you would ever come home to me, and I just kind of… gave up, for a bit.”

“Why’d you decide to keep going?” Five asked, not sounding judgemental in the slightest, which was surprising to her oddly. She would have expected Five to have been a little dismissive at something like that, to not sound… understanding. His voice, though, was filled with understanding though it also held concern. 

“I thought of how even if you never came home. If you just… couldn’t come home to me, that you would be so _pissed_ at me for letting myself go, and I couldn’t make you mad at me,” Vanya’s voice was so small that she knew he wouldn’t have heard it if she was not speaking right next to his ear. 

He forced her to look at him, keeping her captive in his bright eyes that were now lined with age. “There was a day when I was surviving in the wreckage apocalypse that I genuinely considered killing myself.”

She inhaled sharply, but he continued on, “I didn’t because I knew I had to be back for my family, had to be back for you. You know how I said that your book was pretty good?”

She nodded. 

“I lied,” he said, quickly continuing as he saw her eyes drop. “Your book was what kept me sane. I had suspected that I was going to just become a shell of what I once was at some points, but your book was my tether to home. That day that I considered it? I read your book instead for about the thirty fifth or so time, and I read the equations that I’d worked on, hoping they would take me home one day. Your book was not just _pretty good,_ it was a sliver of home and it was a lifeline.”

“You’re my home,” he whispered. “And I’m really fucking glad that you didn’t give up, either, okay? Because I absolutely _would_ have been pissed if you had.”

Vanya was startled by the bubble of laughter that came out of her mouth. She didn’t know how it was possible for him to say something so heart wrenchingly earnest and then still be able to make her laugh, but she figured it was just a side effect of Five being her best friend. “I love you,” Vanya mumbled.

“I love you too.” Five leaned down to kiss her. “We should shower so we can leave as soon as we take a nap.”

“You really were serious about that nap, weren’t you?”

“I’m a tired, weary, old man.”

“I don’t think you slept for two weeks when you were trying to stave off the apocalypse,” Vanya countered. 

“Precisely why I deserve a nap.” 

She grinned at him, sitting up, clasping hands with his own, and dragging him to the shower. “We’ll take one after we take a shower, old man.”

“You say old man so scathingly, but you gotta know, it’s doing a lot for me.”

“We should see other people.”

“I’m assuming our counterparts are already fucking with gusto, so we’ll probably have to take a raincheck on that one,” Five said, hopping into the shower and tugging her gently along as he flicked on the hot water. 

She frowned heavily at him. 

“Too soon? Because I’m pretty sure if either of us should feel upset about humor dealing with sleeping with alternate universe counterparts, it should rightfully be me.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be able to handle Klaus for at least ten years after this,” Vanya told him, reaching over to grab the soap and handing it to him. 

“We will make due with having no family until then,” Five said, seemingly fascinated with the concept of washing her off but making sure to glance up at her every few beats. “I suppose we should hide here until the sophomoric jokes go away.”

“We’d be hiding from them forever.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

She laughed, and they easily talked to one another in the shower, filling each other in on years of things the other had missed. It was nice, how quickly they could go back to the easy banter, how quickly they could be one another’s confidantes again. When the water had started to go cold, Five grabbed them some towels to dry off, guiding her back to the bedroom searching through a dresser and finding some clothes that were just a little too loose for both of them but were perfectly comfortable. 

They settled onto the bed, curling against one another and easily falling asleep. 

Two hours later, they left the cabin with full intention to go back. They landed where Allison, Luther, Diego, and Klaus were staying. When they opened the door to their place, all four of their gazes snapped up to them. 

“Guys,” Klaus announced, grinning to the others. “I think Five might not be a virgin anymore.”

Five scowled at him, “I wasn’t before.”

“Please do not say anymore, it is decidedly less amusing now. However, Vanya, do alternate timelines change you know…” Klaus winked, gesturing vaguely with his hand. _“Just_ people’s consciousness.”

Vanya opened her mouth to speak, but she was interrupted by the door opening again. She was confused at the way Klaus’s gaze went entirely serious as he looked behind Vanya and Five. She didn’t want to turn behind her, afraid of whatever fresh hell was waiting. Diego’s eyes were also impossibly wide, and he chanced looking over at Klaus. 

The suspense was too much. Vanya and Five turned around, holding onto each other’s arms like they were both prepared to fight if they had to. 

They didn’t have to. 

Sparrow One was staring at all of them, but he kept flicking his gaze back to Klaus and Diego. 

“What do you want, One?” Vanya asked, having been the only of them to interact with this version of him truly. 

She sensed Luther stiffening his shoulders at the use of his own number on another, and she prepared herself for battle. 

Instead, he said, “Reginald is dead now, so, if it’s possible, could you guys start calling me Ben?”

Klaus inhaled sharply. 

Ben heard him, training his eyes to him and then to Diego. “I’m not the one you grew up with, and I never will be.”

Vanya watched him carefully, listening to his heartbeat. The eldritch seemed to sense that she was stronger than them, and she could hear them as they actively recoiled from her. 

“Even though I am not him, I still do hope you would accept me. I will confess that Reginald was not killed by me… you can thank Five for that.”

They all looked over at Five. “Not me,” he snarled at them. 

Ben gulped, “I won’t be any trouble, I promise, and I could-“

Five took one glance at Vanya’s face as she recalled their conversation about missing Ben before he said, “Of course you’re welcome to stay with us, Ben. Right, guys?”

Vanya nodded fervently. Diego and Klaus looked at one another before agreeing simultaneously. Once Allison had agreed, Luther quickly followed.

Ben looked overwhelmed at all of it, offering a tight, hesitant smile. 

Klaus, of course, chose the moment that he finally seemed to relax to ask, “So you’ve probably seen Sparrow Five naked, right? How many inches are we talking here?” 

When Ben looked over to Vanya and Five, like he had already assessed they were going to be the ones to trust on a sensical answer, Five confirmed, “Yes, Klaus is _always_ like that.”

“I think we have a right to know,” Diego called out, looking at Five expectantly. 

“Diego too,” Vanya added helpfully.

* * *

It was night-time in Russia by the time the Sparrow found Olena. Five knew somewhere, far away, his counterpart was with the woman he had fallen in love with over time. Vanya had been insistent that she would love any version of him, and he was both apprehensive and hopeful that this would be the case for himself. 

Reginald had died almost eerily simply. Five had made it as quick as possible, to ensure that he would not somehow get away. The other Sparrows had fucked off somewhere else upon Reginald’s death, but One, who Vanya had called Ben, had told him that he intended to speak with the Umbrellas. Five had flicked up a brow at him, cool amusement likely clear across his features when he had smirked at One. 

“Was it their Number Two or their Number Four that did it for you, One?” Five had asked. 

One had sneered. 

Both, then. 

Five was nervous. He was big enough to admit that he didn’t know how meeting Olena would turn out. Obviously, he did not love her. Not yet, at least, and, perhaps, not ever. 

He had promised Vanya though that he would try, and he wouldn’t take that promise. The ephemeral time the universe had allotted him to exist within Vanya’s atmosphere would always have held a note of bitterness despite how sweet it was. She was the first thing that he had ever loved, the first thing that had ever loved him, too. Despite that, she would always choose someone else over him. He couldn’t blame her Umbrella for that, but he could blame Reginald for never allowing the version of her that existed in his universe to ever cross paths with him until today. 

Reginald was dead and gone, and perhaps it was for the better that Olena would never meet him. Vanya had not been delicate, at least in the time he had known her, but maybe Olena was. He wondered if she would even immediately trust Five, and he wondered if he wanted her to or not. On one hand, if she trusted him immediately, it would make it easier to explain who he was. On the other hand, he didn’t like the thought of Olena trusting any stranger that crossed paths with her. Vanya claimed she would be powerful, but he didn’t think he wanted to find out _how_ powerful she was by her being put in danger. 

The instructions his counterpart had given had been clear in where Olena would be, or at least within the general vicinity of where she would be. The Sparrow had opted to take a plane instead, hoping that it would give him time to let his nerves calm. Drinking expensive liquor high up in the air on Reginald’s dime (stolen from him, of course) was an added bonus. Of course, the second he had landed in Russia, he had regretted it all and vomited until he passed out and woke up at around six PM, already searching around for Olena the second he had bought water at a market and chugged it down while a very old Russian man frowned at him. 

He had intended to leave the market instantly, but then he had spotted her. 

His heart stopped. 

“Vanya,” he whispered before shaking himself. It was _Olena,_ he corrected. This was Olena, Vanya’s counterpart, the one who belonged in his world. Mesmerized, he watched her yell in Russian at some man who had shoved her in his haste to get to some fruit, eyes flashing white as she shoved him back, making the man yelp and scurry away. She blinked in confusion, seeming to realize something in that moment before her face turned bright red. Five’s heart stuttered at her blush, felt himself pulled by the universe to Olena. 

He walked to her, trying to imagine what he was to stay. Nervously, he flitted through his somewhat meagre understanding of the Russian tongue. Hopefully, she would be able to understand what he was saying. Most of his missions had not required Russian, and Five wondered if any of the reasoning lay in the fact that Reginald wanted to separate him from her.

  
But, no, he wouldn’t have suspected the Umbrellas’ bond in the time that he had met the Umbrella Five. From the small morsels of information Vanya had given him about herself, he had gathered that when Vanya and the other Five had met up with Reginald a long time ago, he likely wouldn’t have suspected their bond. He felt that only an idiot wouldn’t have been able to see the way those two eyed each other, but, then, Reginald had been killed astoundingly easily for a supposed genius. 

Five shook his head, clearing his thoughts. He knew what he was attempting to do there, in distracting himself. Why did he care so much that he did not make a fool of himself in front of Olena? Was it because Vanya had had such an awful impression of him in the beginning? (Which, he was well-aware, was completely and entirely justified.) 

Olena started muttering to herself, waiting for the man who had shoved past her to get his fruits before eyeing them herself. Five felt a spark of irritation at the man for bothering her, but he didn’t think murdering a man out of chivalry was the proper beginning to a meet-cute. 

Five tried to be subtle, walking behind her for a little before moving, slowly and subtly as possible, in front of her. When she glanced up at him in confusion, he spoke.

* * *

The man standing in front of her spoke in fumbled attempts at Russian. 

“You’re a tourist?” Olena asked in English, unable to decipher what he was trying to say. His accent was American. 

“You speak English?” he asked. She nodded, moving her gaze from his own to eye the fruit again.

“You’re Olena, right?”

She frowned sharply, whirling to look at him. If she used her powers here, it could get ugly. She backed away, preparing to run if necessary. 

He seemed to notice her hesitation, backing up a little himself and setting his hands in front of himself like he was trying to calm her. “I’m Five.”

He must have some sort of illness, she thought. He thought he was five years old. “Please do not come any further,” she said, feeling her eyes going white. It was a response to fear, one she had had since she was young. Her family had feared it, had feared _her,_ she imagined. Russia, when Olena had grown up, had been a scary enough place as is. 

“You don’t understand,” the man said. He was studying her eyes, and she felt her stomach sink with the familiar sense of rejection. It was confusing, why she’d even feel it with a stranger. All her life, she had felt she had belonged nowhere, with no one. Her family had abandoned her at one point, leaving her to wander around directionless for years. She had hoped, one day, to find someone like herself.

As she had the thought, palms started to glow. 

She jerked back, fear replacing all other feelings. “Who _are_ you?” Olena gasped. 

“I’m Five,” he repeated. 

He walked towards her, cautiously. The way his palms were out in front of him made the glow more clear. “I’m like you, Olena.”

She stopped moving. 

“I can prove it to you,” he insisted. “Let me show you.” 

Her heart was speeding. She could hear it in his ears. It occurred to her, then, that she could listen to his own heart. Test his breathing and his pulse for any tells. “Are you here to hurt me?”

“No, Olena.”

He was telling the truth, unless he had taken some sort of pill to keep his heartbeat steady. She flicked up an eyebrow. “Prove it then.” 

The man glanced around them, “Here?”

She stayed silent. 

Sighing, he let the blue light in his hands grow, and she flinched back. In an instant, he was standing in the space she had just occupied. 

“Told you so,” he said, drawing his hands together behind him. It was then that the pattern of his heart changed, like he was nervous for some inexplicable reason. “Show me your power, Olena.” 

“Here?” 

“Wherever you would like. I’ll take you.” 

She looked around her, at the market of a home town that never left her with a sense of belonging either. For years, Olena had searched for someone like her, and here he was, standing in front of her. She had had no one and nothing because she was completely out of the ordinary, and here someone was that was extraordinary like herself. She stared at the fruits in the wooden carts, mundane in the way that she would never be. She stared at the people dressed in warm clothing that seemed to look away from her, seemingly sensing that she didn’t belong with them either. She stared at the moon hanging above her head and onto the words she wanted to say, like it too awaited her decision. 

She stared at the man’s hand as he offered it to her, palm facing up. At the tattoo of a bird on his wrist. Birds could choose to be anywhere they’d like. They didn’t need to belong to anything but themselves. They were completely free, living whatever life they chose, wherever the winds would take them.

She stared at the man’s pulse point on his neck as she heard the pounding of his heart, awaiting her decision. Was he nervous that she would agree or that she wouldn’t? 

She stared at the man’s eyes as she grasped his hand, trusting that he would take her somewhere far away from there. 

She could be free, too. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. Wow. Thank you so much for getting all the way through this fic. It has been such a fun experience to write it, and I really am going to miss writing it!!! 
> 
> Now, my obligatory reminder for Fiveya week-  
> Fiveya week is a week to create fanfics, fanart, fanvids, moodboards, playlists, fan edits, or whatever else surrounding Fiveya. This can include both platonic and romantic pairing as long as it centers on Five and Vanya. If fics are nsfw or have potentially triggering content, please make sure to tag/rate them appropriately. There will be a full list of rules that you can find on the fivevanya tumblr.  
> The list of prompts includes:  
> November 1st: Memories  
> November 2nd: Dancing/Training  
> November 3rd: Childhood  
> November 4th: Sparrow AU  
> November 5th: Guilt  
> November 6th: End/Begin  
> November 7th: Free Day


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